Review Date July 26, 2011


  • Pros

    All-aluminum design. Equipped with Blu-ray drive. Backlit keyboard is nice. Powerful Core i5 processor. Lightweight. Decent battery life. USB 3.0. WiDi 2.0. Netgear Receiver included.

  • Cons Fan noises and heat are problematic. Discrete graphics is not that much more powerful than the integrated graphics. All the ports and slots are situated on the right side.
  • Bottom Line

    Although the Sony VAIO VPC-SC1FM is jam-packed with goodies, its tiny chassis couldn't handle the power of a Core i5 processor and AMD graphics.

By Cisco Cheng

The Sony VAIO VPC-SC1AFM ($979.99 list at Best Buy), an ultraportable laptop, is an absolute pleasure to look at and includes luxuries like a backlit keyboard, Blu-ray drive, and the latest in wireless technologies (WiDi 2.0, WiMAX, and 802.11n Wi-Fi). It's also too powerful for its own good, though. While fast, the combination of the Intel Core i5 processor and AMD Radeon 6470M graphics was too much for its tiny physique, as it was a victim of loud fan noises and some heat.

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The SC1AFM is a testament to Sony's knack for style. While an ultraportable like the Acer Aspire AS3830TG-6431 ($750 street, 4 stars) only uses aluminum on the top and palm rest area, the SC1AFM uses it all over the chassis—you'd be hard-pressed to find any traces of plastic in its sleek design. It's not as thin as the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch ($1,299 direct, 4 stars) and Samsung Series 9 ($1,650 list, 4 stars), since it includes a built-in Blu-ray drive and bigger cavity (and thus, the necessary air-flow) to cool its powerful parts, but even then it wasn't enough. At 3.9 pounds, it's a pound heavier than the Air 13-inch (2.9 pounds) and Series 9 (2.9 pounds) and at least a half a pound heavier than the Toshiba Portege R835-P50X ($850 list, 4 stars) (3.2 pounds)—another ultraportable that wields an optical drive. Though it faces stiff competition in the looks department, the SC1AFM holds its own.

The 13.3-inch screen is bright, and also impresses with its wide viewing angles. It's too bad Sony couldn't do anything with the boiler plate 1,366-by-768 resolution, like how did with the Sony VAIO VPC-Z214GX (which has a 1,600 by 900 resolution). You can also find a higher resolution on the MacBook Air 13-inch (1,440 by 900). The chiclet-style keyboard doesn't necessarily provide a standout typing experience, but serious typists will come to love it if only for the backlit function. You can also find a backlit keyboard on the Samsung Series 9 and Apple Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt). The roomy touchpad and big mouse buttons that wrap around the front bezel are also better engineered than those of the Acer AS3830TG and Toshiba R835-P50X.

Since Sony owns the Blu-ray format, it was only fitting that the SC1AFM optical drive reads Blu-ray discs. It's probably the only 13-inch ultraportable that sports this kind of a drive, since small screens can't fully exploit a 1080p resolution. But then again, you can use the built-in HDMI port to hook the SC1AFM to, say, a 50-inch plasma in your living room. The other technology is called Wireless Display 2.0 (WiDi 2.0), which is essentially a wireless version of HDMI. It's an Intel-brewed technology, one that requires a Netgear Push2TV receiver (included in bundle) that has to be tethered to the HDTV at all times. The receiver communicates with the SC1AFM's WiDi 2.0 chip in the way Bluetooth headset pairs with its receiver. This latest version of WiDi can stream videos up to 1080p and protected content, such as the Blu-ray movies you rent from Netflix.

WiDi 2.0 isn't your only wireless connection; the SC1AFM is also equipped with WiMAX (4G technology), 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. My only complaint is that all of the ports and slots are situated on the right side. One of the three USB ports boasts USB 3.0 technology, which can transfer data at 10 times the speed of USB 2.0. The 500GB (7,200rpm) hard drive matches the one found in the Acer AS3830TG, but is smaller than that of the R835-P50X (640GB). Like many Sony laptops, there are separate memory slots for SD and Memory Stick formats.



Sony VAIO VPC-SC1AFM Like the Acer AS3830TG and Toshiba R835-P50X, the SC1AFM uses a standard-voltage Intel Core i5-2410M processor, which is more powerful than the low-voltage variants found in the Samsung Series 9 and MacBook Air 13-inch. But all this power generates heat and that's where the SC1AFM stumbles. The laptop can get hot and loud during intensive work outs. For instance, transcoding a video using Handbrake (1 minute 56 seconds) and rendering a photo in Photoshop CS5 (4:11) were accompanied by loud fan noises, although it finished ahead of the R835-P50X (3:15, 5:36) in terms of speed. It's at least twice as fast as the MacBook Air 13-inch (1.1) and Series 9 (1.36), according to its Cinebench R11.5 score (2.6).

The SC1AFM boasts a switchable graphics system that works with its two graphics components: The integrated graphics in the Intel Core i5 CPU and a discrete AMD Radeon 6470M card. The latter was a major contributor to the heat issues and loud fan noises and didn't boost the laptops's gaming performance enough to justify having a dedicated graphics chip. The switching technology isn't automatic, like the Nvidia Optimus technology found in the Acer AS3830TG; rather, switching between graphics chips requires that you flip a physical switch above the keyboard. Furthermore, its 3DMark 06 (5,513) and Crysis (35.9 frames per second) scores using the AMD Radeon 6470M card were only marginally better than Intel's integrated solution. You'll get a much better gaming experience (and less heat) from the Acer AS3830TG.

Despite using parts that feast on the battery, the SC1AFM performed respectably in MobileMark 2007—a battery test. It drained its 49WH battery in 6 hours 22 minutes. By comparison, the Toshiba R835-P50X (9:26) and Acer AS3830TG (8:18) were more battery efficient because they have bigger batteries. But Sony does offer an extended battery slice (not included in this bundle) that spans the entire base of the laptop, which should take its battery score into the double-digit range.

The Sony VAIO VPC-SC1AFM is what you would call a fully-loaded ultraportable. Even though its price is considered steep, features like a Blu-ray drive, backlit keyboard, WiDi 2.0, and dual graphics system warrant the premium. What it doesn't warrant, however, is the fan noises and heat that can very well mess with your Zen during moderately intensive tasks like video and photo editing. It might be a small price to pay for some users, but I would rather spend my money on the Acer Aspire AS3830TG-6431 or Toshiba Portege R835-P50X.

Check out the test scores for the Sony VAIO VPC-SC1AFM

Compare the Sony VAIO VPC-SC1AFM with several other laptops side by side.

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Cisco Cheng
By Cisco Cheng Lead Analyst, Laptops and Tablet PCs


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