In one corner, we have a 13-inch MacBook Air from Apple and in the other corner, we have the VAIO Pro 13 from Sony. Does the Sony VAIO Pro 13 have everything to defeat the exciting 13-inch Apple MacBook Air champion?
Sony is poised to bring its new revamped design with extraordinary touchscreen technology that runs on Windows 8. Apple continues its iconic smooth look that feels more dated this time around. Its strongest capacity is the 14-hour battery life.
Round 1: Design
VAIO 13 Pro: Sony brings a sleek design, topped with a magnesium chassis that runs on Windows 8. It’s as light as a feather, weighing in at just 453 grams. The screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, but its motion functions are causing little problems. The hinges gave us a difficult experience when we wanted to adjust the lid. Sony did a great job incorporating the display into a slim bezel.
13-inch MacBook Air: Apple continued its classic design, a flex-free full aluminum body and smooth hinges that allow for easy lid adjustment. It still feels premium, but it’s a bit dated with its thicker bezel on the screen. The screen has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels.
We declare the first round a draw.
Round 2: Features
VAIO Pro 13: What separates this device from its tougher competitor, the MacBook Air, is its 1080p display with touchscreen function, which feels more natural to interact with your ultrabook screen. It also has a full-size HDMI port and NFC support. The most interesting thing is that Sony has decided to put another USB port on the power adapter.
13-inch MacBook Air: Apple decided not to include a touch screen function. You need a dongle to get videos from your MacBook Air. However, this ultrabook packs the fastest 802.11 Wi-Fi. The benefit here is that you can install both Windows and Mac OS on this machine, but our judges still give this round to Sony VAIO.
Round 3: Performance
The Sony ultrabook is equipped with a 1.5GHz Core i7 processor along with 8GB of RAM and the MacBook Air had a 1.3GHz Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM.
In our multi-tasking multimedia performance test, the MacBook Air outperformed the Sony VAIO Pro and also performed better in the iTunes encoding tests. The VAIO Pro ranked first in the Adobe Photoshop image processing test, while the handbrake multitasking test gave the same result. Both ultrabooks gave almost similar results and we called this round a draw.
Round 4: Battery Life
In the video download test that is usually taken to see battery life, the VAIO Pro 13 gave impressive results with almost 9 hours. Sony gives you the ability to upgrade the battery for $ 150 by purchasing an additional external battery. The MacBook Air gave more than 14 hours of battery life and we concluded that Apple set new standards in the ultrabook industry. Apple takes this round with a big difference.
Round 5: Price
Sony’s VAIO Pro 13 base model with 1.6GHz Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM retails for $ 1,249, including 1080p touchscreen The MacBook Air starts at $ 1,099 for its base model that has a Core processor 1.3 GHz i5 along with 4 GB of RAM. However, Apple has the machine that is a better value than its competitor, and as you can see from its performance, this entry-level version of the ultrabook may be right up there with the VAIO Pro 13 version of the i7 processor. This round was for the Apple MacBook Air.
We gave the throne to Apple’s MacBook Air but we can assure you that the difference is slight and if you decide to buy the Sony VAIO Pro 13 you will not be disappointed.
