Sony VAIO VPCF21Z1E review

Ever since James Cameron’s Avatar thrust cinema-goers into the third-dimension of film, the concept of 3D in the home has become a reality. Now Sony, the big force behind the Blu-ray 3D format, has gone one step further, cramming a 3D display into a laptop equipped with one of Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge processors.

It might be significantly more portable than your average 3D TV, but even so, you’re unlikely to want to watch 3D movies on the train to work; the Sony VAIO VPCF21Z1E is a seriously big laptop. Even with the glossy black lid firmly shut, it rises 46mm above the desk, and weighs in at a considerable 3.14kg.

Sit the Sony on a coffee table or a desk, though, and it’s right at home. Gloss black reaches all around, the thick-set chassis tapering away underneath, and the imposing figure makes the Sony look every inch the luxurious powerhouse.

Peel the thick lid back and, as the Windows desktop appears, you’re left in no doubt as to the quality of the Sony’s 16in Full HD display. Fire up a Blu-ray disc, and the display delivers strikingly crisp images. Pin-sharp detail fills every corner of the screen, while the excellent colour reproduction sees it shrug off the challenges of Avatar, the beautifully rendered palette of blues and greens bringing the planet of Pandora to life.

Don the supplied active-shutter glasses, dab the 3D button beneath the Sony’s display, and the VPCF21Z1E reveals its 3D party trick. The display’s brightness levels drop significantly in 3D mode, when it switches to 120Hz, and the shutter glasses darken content even further, but the sheer quality of the display more than makes amends. Indeed, despite the relatively small 16in panel, Blu-ray 3D content was jaw-droppingly effective, with environments reaching deep into three-dimensional space and objects bursting out of the confines of the screen.

The bundled copy of Corel’s WinDVD software also makes it possible to watch standard 2D movies in a 3D-upscaling mode. We tested it with a DVD of Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as Avatar on Blu-ray, and the results were mixed. The pseudo-3D effect definitely gave images more depth, but, in the main it was unconvincing, and we often found our eyes struggling to adjust to the forced depth effect in certain scenes. Somewhat disappointingly, as the upscaling mode is restricted to WinDVD, it isn't possible to engage the 3D upscaling while watching web-based content such as BBC iPlayer or YouTube.