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The X was very much the MBA-before-the-MBA, but the Atom and the price tag killed it pretty dead. Really awesome technology, though. Sony does a lot of crazy stuff with its high end / niche laptops, though its low-end / mass market ones are fairly crappy usually. They were way, way ahead of netbooks too, with the old Picturebook series (I owned a couple of those).
If you can get a 2010 Z off eBay for a decent price it's still a really good thing to get, though I imagine some of the SSDs may start failing in a year or two. They're replacable, but it's a bit finicky as they're 1.8" drives, and not a lot of people make those any more. If an MBA isn't enough system for you, I think one of the new Samsung Series 9 systems might be the best thing around at current retail. The current model Vaio Z is interesting, but lacks an optical drive and a good internal graphics card, the bezel is somewhat larger than the 2010 one, and the keyboard isn't as good as the 2010 one.




Member since:
2006-01-25
I didn't know the Vaio X existed... I wasn't trying to exclude it - just saying that there were hundreds of netbooks with Atoms in them - but that was basically their Achilles Heal.
Having looked at it though I'll concede the Vaio X certainly did not look like a fisher price toy (compared to most netbooks).
Yeah, that part is true... Apple did have a somewhat unfair advantage by getting a custom chip from Intel. It was way faster than an Atom - but that only got it to the bottom rung of usable for most people.