*** From the Archives ***

This article is from December 3, 2015, and is no longer current.

Review: VAIO Z Canvas

7

I am a Mac guy. Have been for almost 30 years, since I first plugged in a chunky beige 512k Mac back in the summer of 1987 and started goofing around with MacPaint. My house is littered with the Ghosts of Macs Past, because I can’t throw any of them away. I have shelves full of old laptops, towers, and iMacs, and drawers of old iPods and iPads. The only members of my household who don’t have iPhones are the dogs and cats. So when I say that the VAIO Z Canvas is the first machine ever that could get me to switch sides and dump my Mac, know that this is a very big deal. Let’s take a look at what makes this machine such a compelling tool for creative pros.

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Display

The VAIO Z Canvas has the most beautiful display I’ve ever seen on a computer, period.

Back in the day I used to do a lot of Photoshop work, color correcting and retouching photos, and I had a gorgeous Sony Trinitron with a gray hood, calibrated and profiled, etc, etc. The thing was about as big and as heavy as a Subaru, but I loved it. The 12.3-inch VAIO Z Canvas display is every bit as good as that old Sony display, and more. It sports a resolution of 2560 × 1704 (3:2 aspect ratio) at 250 ppi. And it’s been optimized to represent over 95% of the Adobe RGB color gamut. The blacks are so wonderfully inky, and convey such depth that it almost seems 3D. Working with this display makes it really hard to switch back to the low-res display of my MacBook Air, where by comparison everything seems flat and pixelated.

And the benefits of the VAIO Z Canvas display are not just for photo work. If you love typography, you might feel like you’re really seeing your fonts for the first time when you view them on this display. Every curve is perfectly crisp, with no jagged edges in sight. To my eyes, the Z Canvas display easily beats Mac Retina displays.

Processor

Another key consideration is the power that’s packed into this machine. No one would call the VAIO Z Canvas underpowered. It sports an Intel® Coreâ„¢ i7 processor running at 2.2 GHz, with Intel Turbo Boost pushing it to 3.4 GHz. It’s incredibly fast (faster than a MacBookPro), and I hardly stressed it at all with my usual InDesign-Photoshop-Illustrator work. If you’ve been leery of trying to accomplish professional creative work on a mobile device, rest assured this machine is up to just about any task you can throw at it. This is no consumer-level tablet. In fact, VAIO named this machine the Canvas to get away from the whole tablet metaphor. In their minds, tablets are better suited for content consumption, but a canvas is where you create. And this machine is designed from the ground up to appeal to creative professionals, from graphic designers, to photographers, illustrators, and artists.

Fans

The one thing that I didn’t like was the fan running almost constantly. Actually, it takes three fans to keep the processor cool. This is just a fact of life with the VAIO Z Canvas. Fortunately, the fan sound is soft, thanks to some clever noise-cancelling tech built into the machine. But coming from a silent MacBook Air, I was occasionally distracted by the fan noise.

Weight

Including the keyboard, the VAIO Z Canvas weighs 3 lbs 6 ounces, which is about 7 oz more than my MacBook Air. It feels heavy, but it’s no brick. Much of the weight comes from a huge battery that offers up to 7 hours of life. By comparison, the Z Canvas is lighter (and thinner) than a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Keyboard

The keyboard is separate from the display, and in fact you can’t attach the two to work like a traditional laptop. And to be honest, I did miss the feel of a laptop. However, the display has a solid kickstand in the back that you can use to set it up on a table. Working from Starbucks won’t be a problem. But if you’re sitting on the couch or riding on the subway, you’ll probably want to use the onscreen keyboard.

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At first, I was a bit skeptical about the plastic keys and trackpad, but in fact they work quite well. The trackpad is smooth and responsive, with just enough friction so it doesn’t feel slippery or gritty. The keys are quiet and springy. Interestingly, the keyboard communicates with the display via RF, not Bluetooth. The connection is instant, and I never saw any delays or input problems, even standing 10 feet away from the display.

Touch and Stylus

One of the key advantages over a Mac laptop is the ability to use the touchscreen to work. For example, on the Z Canvas you can make use of the new Touch workspace in InDesign CC 2015 to quickly sketch layouts with a few simple gestures, and then tap once to switch to the full interface to continue working.

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The Z Canvas comes with a stylus, and when you use it, you start to realize the real benefit of having the keyboard detached from the display. If you’ve ever wanted a pen display like a Wacom Cintiq, this is a serious rival. It recognizes 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity, and knows enough to ignore the palm of your hand when you rest it on the display. Both the touch panel and stylus have been engineered to minimize “parallax error” which is the difference between where it looks like you touch the display and where the touch is actually registered. The result is that you get really precise results with touch, and not a lot of clumsy “fat fingered” mistakes.

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Ports

Another nice convenience is the plethora of ports on the Z Canvas. VAIO has taken the opposite approach of Apple, by packing just about any port you’d need onto the machine: LAN, USB 3.0, HDMI, Mini-display, SD card, and mic/headphone. You won’t need to buy any adapters to connect the Z Canvas to your other devices.

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Price and Options

The VAIO Z Canvas is a high-end device for professional work, and it’s priced accordingly. In other words, it ain’t cheap but you get what you pay for. It comes in three configurations (all running Windows 10 Pro):

256 GB Serial ATA SSD/8 GB RAM for $2199

512 GB PCI Express X4 SSD/16 GB RAM for $2599

1 TB PCI Express X4 SSD/16 GB RAM for $3099

Summary

I haven’t quite given up my Mac allegiance yet. But let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day there’s a VAIO Z Canvas sitting proudly next to all the old Apple products in my personal computing hall of fame. If you’re doing high-end Photoshop, Illustrator, or video work, or just want to take advantage of a powerhouse machine with a gorgeous display and touch capabilities you should check out the VAIO Z Canvas.

Pros: high-powered performance, stunning display, touch input, overall craftsmanship

Cons: price, weight, fan noise

Score: 8.5/10

Editor in Chief of CreativePro. Instructor at LinkedIn Learning with courses on InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, GIMP, Inkscape, and Affinity Publisher.
  • W. Blower says:

    So an Intel® Core™ i7 processor running at 2.2 GHz (Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz) is faster than the 2.5GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz) found in the MacBookPro? Really?

  • jvi says:

    Curious… In your tests and daily use with the Z Canvas, did you ever have problems with the keyboard communication with the tablet top (losing communication/connection randomly and often)? Researching this device, it seems that’s a recurring gripe noted by many buyers.

    • Mike Rankin says:

      No, I never did. Not sure I did anything different or just got lucky. The only time I thought I lost connection was actually due to user error (I’d forgotten to make sure the keyboard was charged).

      • jvi says:

        Thanks. I’m currently comparing the Z Canvas with a MS Surface Book. The Surface Book seems to have a slight edge in specs (especially the NVDIA gpu), but amazingly, the Sony’s price (at this point) is MUCH better. I’m a happy/loyal Sony customer… owned several laptops/PCs over the years. I heard VAIO was separating from Sony and it seems customer support may nose-dive on VAIO products. Leaning toward the Surface Book :)

      • Mike Rankin says:

        Yeah, the Surface Book seems like a good choice in general. Claudia McCue wrote up an enthusiastic article on her experience with the Surface Book’s little brother, the Surface Pro 4 https://claudiamccue.com/2016/01/microsoft-surface-pro-4-getting-acquainted/ I know others who like theirs as well. Good luck!

  • J says:

    What’s the battery life like for the Z canvas? Some websites are suggesting 3 hours battery life whilst some others are saying 5 to 7.5 hours…

    • Mike Rankin says:

      Great question. Unfortunately I didn’t focus on that as much as I should’ve when I had the review unit (I worked plugged in most of the time). Given that the fan runs a lot I’d tend to believe the lower estimates.

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