A tablet, a PC, its both: Sony Vaio Tap 20.

With the release of Windows 8 , lot of new laptops and ultrabooks came up supporting touch to operate on Microsoft’s latest OS. For those who thought that desktops were immune from sweeping over windows 8, Sony Vaio Tap 20 is the answer. This is a new breed of  all in one desktop featuring an amazingly slim 20 inch monitor with an in-built battery. Which means that you could take this hybrid tablet-desktop anywhere in your house and enjoy the windows 8 interface in large-sized display. Lets look at what this so called “all in one ” pc is capable of.

Design.

The Tap 20 has just the right dimensions and Sony has very well balanced between the size of the Tap 20 and the power it offers. The Tap 20 measures 19.75 inches wide, 12.13 inches high and is 1.5 inches deep at is thickest part of its tapered back. It weighs just about 11 pounds so you would be able to carry it around with very little difficulty. Sony maintained somewhat reasonable dimensions to provide tablet convenience along with the humbleness of a PC. The Screen is fully glass covered, although the rest is soft and has grip friendly indents at the left and the right side of the screen.

The Vaio Tap 20 is not at all uncomfortable to use when placed on your lap like a tablet for an extended period. And when its placed with the stand extended from the back panel, it takes the Desktop form with a 7 inch estate and the power cable plugs in to the right side of the screen leading to a laptop sized power brick. The large 20-inch display offers you maximum experience in both the cases.

Performance.

The Tap 20 compromised with its processor to enhance more portability. Its uses low voltage Intel’s i5 processor with core clock speed of 1.7GHz while the standard voltage i5 processors are clocked at 2.5 GHz. This low voltage processor means lower performance in terms of speed and multitasking and an increased battery life with limited heat output. The lower voltage also reduces the speed of embedded Intel HD Graphics. The Tap 20 still provides a satisfactory performance despite a low powered CPU and handles many high processing needs quite flawlessly. It provides 3-4 hours of battery life on continuous video playback and more on casual web browsing and other lite tasks. The battery is also user replaceable.

At the gaming regiment, the Tap 20 is able to play most of 3D games quite easily though I needed to lower the image quality in some for optimal performance. Touch gaming is though a little annoying due to the occasional drag. However games which run on external hardware or the ones based on tap perform quite seamlessly.

Features.

The Tap 20′s ultralow voltage i5 processor, absence of the HDMI cable and also no optical drive show Sony’s clear sacrifices for the sake of portability, price and weight. The hybrid all in one desktop features a 1600×900 pixel resolution, a decent 750GB hard drive, and 4GB of RAM. The Tap 20 costs just around $1000, so it could well be considered as an alternative for Desktops and Tablets. Though the absence of HDMI cable could be replaced with a USB optical Drive or a TV tuner, the HDMI cable would have offered easier connection to additional display without any hassle. Also the absence of optical drive could irk you. The Vaio Tap 20 also features NFC ( near field communications). It has 800p 1MP front camera, an SD card slot, a pair of USB 3.0 Jacks and analog headphone and microphone inputs. Sony also included Bravia’s video engine in the Tap 20 which could enhance color vibrancy in some cases and make pictures abnormally sharp in others. The Dolby assisted audio input does make the sound loud enough to be heard from maybe 8 meters away and the sound is presumably clear.

Summing Up.

The Vaio Tap 20 does offer a very attractive design and a new way of computing, the $1000 price tag may seem too high for experimenting. Even with the low voltage i5 processor, the speed is quite good. If the product clicks, Sony should maybe think of providing all the missing features and components and probably enhance the battery life. The Sony Vaio altogether is an impressive product and I recommend it to people who are tech enthusiasts and want to experiment with this one. With the Windows 8, many such hybrid devices may soon come up and we would just have to wait for them to showcase their capabilities. Untill then the Sony Vaio Tap 20 would simply rule.

All major specs:

Processor: Intel i5 with core clock speed of 1.7GHz

OS: Windows 8

RAM: 4GB

Hard Drive: 750 GB

Price: $1000