12:41
All Specs
The use of carbon fiber instead of aluminum, magnesium, or plastic is a rare but not unprecedented thing for ultraportable laptops. It's the namesake, after all, of Lenovo's award-winning ThinkPad X1 Carbon, and part of the popular Dell XPS 13. VAIO would like to point out that it pioneered the practice with its X505 in 2003, and the company says it's taken it to the next level with the 2021 reincarnation of its flagship VAIO Z. This 14-inch notebook is made out of
contoured carbon fiber, rather than simply incorporating sheets of the substance, trimming its weight to 2.34 pounds with a 4K display. The new VAIO Z is also the lightest laptop with an Intel H-series Core i7 CPU—its competitors use lower-power U-series chips. Unfortunately, this technology doesn't come cheap: The VAIO Z here will set you back a staggering $3,579. A comparable X1 Carbon may be slightly slower but costs $1,700 less, making the VAIO Z hard to recommend to any but the most well-heeled, mile-amassing content-creation pros.