Sony SVD11213CXB Pro Reviews

Despite all its functionality and inventiveness, the Vaio Duo 11 appears to be a product design that became so focused on touch tech that it lost sight of the screen. It’s powerful, well connected and highly portable too, but in some basic areas, it’s just not that usable.

Despite its inherent downsides -- a cramped keyboard chief among them -- there's plenty of appeal to a slider device. It's a tablet and a laptop in one, after all. But, like Smucker's Goober two-in-one PB & J, the VAIO Duo 11 slider is appealing in theory but disappointing in practice. Fact is, the Duo doesn't offer a thin enough design or long enough battery life to cut it as a tablet, and its keyboard is too cramped to make for a good Ultrabook. Yes, the Gorilla Glass display is brilliant, performance is zippy and an accurate digitizer pen is included, but those generous specs don't disguise a half-baked product.

This laptop-tablet hybrid is certainly powerful, but its transformation between the two feels a little awkward

Sony’s convertible tablet gets Windows 8 off to an exhilarating start, but ergonomic niggles tarnish the experience

The Sony VAIO Duo 11 (D11213CX) merges ultrabook and tablet in hopes of making the perfect Windows 8 machine, but it's an awkward combination.

As a tablet running Windows 8, the Sony Vaio Duo 11 is good if you're OK with its weight and size. But saying it's both a tablet and a full laptop is a stretch. It's certainly powerful enough to do both, but in the end its design is too limiting for those who want the best of both worlds.

Aside from the cramped keyboard, the Duo 11's other major shortcoming is battery life. We're in the midst of updating our battery tests, and we don't yet have any similar Windows 8 laptop/tablet hybrids to compare the Duo to, in any case. But in a video-loop rundown test, the Sony lasted just 3 hours and 9 minutes. To be sure, this is a demanding test, and you should see longer battery life if you're, say, working on a document while intermittently checking e-mail or surfing the Web. If you want longer battery life with the Duo 11, you'll want to invest in Sony's external slice battery for this model. (It costs $149.) As a first attempt at a Windows 8 ultrabook/tablet hybrid, Sony's VAIO Duo 11 is impressive. We can't say enough good things about its screen, and touch and stylus input should be great, assuming Sony fixes the touch-screen issue we saw in our pre-production review unit.