Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S
- Category: Notebook Computers
February 21, 2011
Editor's Rating
- Portable, sleek design
- Spacious hard drive
- Solid performance
- AMD Fusion CPU/GPU chipset
- Some keyboard keys are too small
- Multitouch mouse issues
The Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S is an 11-inch laptop that offers AMD's new Fusion CPU/GPU combo chipset and a new design. It's definitely an ultraportable, but it doesn't sacrifice performance as you get a dual-core CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive.
The Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S comes in two colors with either silver or pink lids. They measure 11.4 x 1.25 x 8-inches (whd) and weigh about 3.2-pounds, making it an ultraportable that's a big leap above the performance of a netbook without adding too much bulk and weight.
Sony's design of this laptop features a plastic body that feels quite stiff and solid, which is definitely a good thing for an ultraportable as they're moved around frequently. It feels like it can take a few bumps without too much bruising.
The keyboard is an island-style and has some smaller than normal keys, especially the right Shift key, which is painfully small. Sony did make the keyboard rather tactile, so it gives good feedback when uses. The trackpad is comfortably sized and offers multitouch-capabilities, but in our testing, we actually couldn't get any of them to work.
The Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S' 11.6-inch display has a native resolution of 1366 x 768-pixels, which qualifies it to be 720p high-definition. The screen has excellent viewing angles and sharp, crisp images to go with it. Viewing online HD content looked fabulous on the screen, so watching multimedia content on-the-go is definitely a selling point for this laptop.
In terms of connectivity, you'll find two USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, HDMI out, a Sony Memory Stick & SD memory card slot, gigabit Ethernet and the usual audio jacks. There is also built-in 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.
On the subject of specifications, the Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S has the new AMD Fusion technology that combines CPU and GPU together on one chip, which in this case is the dual-core AMD-E320 CPU (1.60GHz). There's also 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 500GB 5400RPM hard drive, AMD Mobility Radeon HD 6310 graphics and Intel High Definition audio. Sony pre-installs Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) edition.
The AMD Fusion chip in this computer does outperform standard integrated graphics that 99% of all other similar laptops have. While it might not be the fastest chip out there, especially compared to some other more "powerful" laptops available, it's light years better than the Intel Atom chip you'll find in netbooks. For multitasking and productivity use, you'll find the Sony VAIO VPC-YB15KX/S delivers an excellent experience. Playing today's 3D games is even possible with this laptop, but expect to turn down the settings to get a playable experience.
For battery life, we got between 4-5 hours of battery life, which is either on par or above average for other similar ultraportables.
