14 DAY TRIAL // Famous electronics maker, Japanese company SONY is getting ready to launch its own Windows 8 tablet, but the new gadget is much more powerful than the average Intel Atom tablet. The new mobile system from the company is going to be powered by a fully-fledged Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor.
The new mobile PC system from SONY is officially called the VAIO Duo 11 and is in fact a powerful TabletPC powered by Intel’s Ivy Bridge mobile processor, with a small sliding keyboard underneath.
Unlike the usual tablets, this is a x86 power station and it is not powered by low-performing Atom or and ARM CPU.
The most powerful CPU option for the VAIO Duo 11 tablet PC is Intel’s Core i7-3517U processor running at a default frequency of 1900 MHz, with the Turbo ability to run at 2800 MHz with both cores active. It can even reach 3 GHz when only one thread requires maximum performance.
It comes with 4 MB of level 3 cache and can handle up to four threads through the HT technology.
SONY fans will be glad to know that the integrated graphics processing unit (iGPU) is Intel’s HD 4000 with acceptable performance for the amazingly low 17 watts TDP.
The price of the tablet is reportedly set at a high $1930 and that’s almost 1500 EUR for the European buyer.
The 11.6” screen boasts an impressive 1920 by 1080 FullHD pixel resolution in the popular – yet disadvantageous – 16 to 9 format, but we won’t criticize too much as SONY has also managed to pack an integrated keyboard.
On the connectivity side, the SONY VAIO Duo 11 tablet PC is well endowed with WinrelessN, Bluetooth 4.0 +HS, Gigabit LAN, two USB 3.0 ports, a VGA port, NFC, an HDMI port and an SD card reader.
Other useful features are the xLOUD stereo speakers, the two FullHD webcams, GPS, Gyro, Accelerometer, Digital Compass and, more importantly, the extended battery pack.
It can be configured with a 128 GB or 256 GB SSD and comes with a standard 4 GB of DDR3L RAM that runs at 1600 Mhz. It can be upgraded to a total of 8 GB.
Availability is officially slated for October 26th when Microsoft’s Windows 8 is officially launched.
