Hands-on review: Sony Vaio T13

Sony announced its debut Intel Ultrabook earlier this month ? the Sony Vaio T13 - and we got up close and personal with the new machine at an event in London.

Designed to take on the likes of the Dell XPS 13, the HP Folio 13 and, of course, the MacBook Air ? the Sony Vaio T Series Ultrabook is aimed, according to its makers at least, at people who want portability and power on the go.

Our first impressions of the first Ultrabook-branded Vaio machine were that, despite it not being as sleek as Dell's debutant XPS 13, or as pretty as the Asus Zenbook range, this is a seriously slick machine with a robustness and sharp finish unlike any other Ultrabook we've seen.

At 17.8mm, it's certainly not the skinniest Ultrabook model on the catwalk, but its square edges set it apart from its rivals. A MacBook clone it is not.

The magnesium and alloy chassis helps to create an industrial and rugged impression for the T13. And this impression isn't misleading ? a quick tug at the lid revealed that it's plenty sturdy so should be safe enough in your bag for a day out and about.

Powered by a (Sandy Bridge for the moment at least) Intel Core i3 processor and backed up with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the Sony Ultrabook seemed responsive enough with the few simple tasks that we set it. We will, of course, have to spend a bit more time with it and stretch it to its limits before we can give you a comprehensive verdict.

The response time from sleep mode was very quick ? thanks to the hybrid storage system made up of a 320GB HDD and a 32GB SSD. The SSD aspect allows the Intel Smart Response Technology and Sony's Rapid Wake to kick into action, meaning almost instantaneous wake times. There is a standard SSD option too, which will give you an extra couple of hours battery life ? nine as opposed to seven.

For standby life-time, Sony tells us we can expect a whopping 90 days.

The 1,366 x 768, 13-inch LED display held up pretty well under the event lights and the viewing angles looked impressive. Sound is also a strong point thanks to the xLOUD and Clear Phase tech features built in.

The superb build quality is extended to the controls with both the keyboard and the trackpad pleasing our grubby paws. The isolated keyboard, as is the Vaio way, has a soft finish and feels great on the fingertips and the track-pad is large enough to make multi-touch gestures straightforward. There's no backlighting on the keys unfortunately though.

At the top there's a power button with a double LED and three customisable buttons labelled 'Assist', 'Vaio' and 'Web'. These are pre-configured to load up various Sony powered gubbins but you can set them to open up anything that you like.

In terms of connectivity there are a couple of USB ports on the left-hand side, one of which is of the nippier USB 3.0 variety. On the right-hand side of the machine there is a VGA port, a HDMI one, an Ethernet one and a 3.5mm jack for your 'phones.

When it comes to the Sony Vaio T13 price, Sony has pegged it at ?899. It is keeping pretty schtum about possible Ivy Bridge T Series variants arriving, however.

What we do know is that the Sony Vaio T13 Ultrabook will be available in June.

There will also be a made-to-order 11-inch version available on the Sony website.

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