Vaio's entering the Surface-clone race with a $2,200 Windows tablet.

Hands-on with the VAIO Z Canvas: A quad-core Surface Pro 3 killer

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VAIO officials said the aim with its Surface clone was to tackle the creative types who like the appeal of the Surface Pro setup, but need more. Content creators need horsepower, so VAIO figured out a way to jam a 45-watt CPU into a tablet’s body that isn’t bigger than the Hulk.

To be fair to VAIO, the company doesn’t actually think it competes directly with the Surface Pro 3. It actually wants to take a shot at Apple and try to wrest content creators away from their MacBook Pro 13s and MacBook Airs. The idea, VAIO said, is to entice those users with excellent pen support for artistic endeavors, and far more performance than what’s available on the dual-core MacBooks.

Still, it’s hard not to see this as a Surface Pro clone.

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Specs:
12.3-inch IPS panel; 2560x1704 (3:2)
i7-4770HQ (quad-core, 45W TDP)
Intel Iris Pro Graphics 5200
8GB or 16GB
SATA SSD (base model) or PCIe x4 SSD (available)
USB 3.0; SD reader; mini DisplayPort and HDMI; ethernet port
0.92MP front camera and 8MP rear camera
Sony pen technology with 1,024 levels of pressure
Palm rejection via a button that turns off the touch digitizer entirely
Wireless RF keyboard
Weighs 2.76 lbs without keyboard (a pound more than the SP3). Keyboard add 0.75 lbs
11.85" x 0.54" x 8.39" (w/o keyboard). keyboard adds 0.17" thickness

Price:
$2,199 for 8GB RAM/256GB SATA SSD
$2,599 for 16GB RAM/512GB PCIe x4 SSD
$3,099 for 16GB RAM/1 TB PCIe x4 SSD (2 x 512GB)

This is the cooling it takes to keep that 45W CPU in check:


The relatively large battery gives the Canvas an advertised 7 hours of use.

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Anyone who’s used a Surface Pro 3 can tell you it gets hot and loud after a while, and then it gets slow because it can’t shed heat fast enough. So how does the Canvas do it? VAIO said it designed the tablet to use three fans. You can see this in the cutaway, below. Dual heat pipes wick heat from the Core i7-4770HQ to three fans, which exhaust the warm air out the top of the enclosure.

But now the problem is sounding like a 747 on takeoff. To counter excessive fan noise, a phenomenon the Surface Pro 3 sometimes exhibits while just browsing the web, the VAIO team said it designed the fans using blades and rotational speeds that would create noise cancellation. Essentially, the company claims, each fan cancels the noise from the others. Noise is further reduced—and longevity increased—by using fluid dynamic bearings rather than a typical sleeved or ball bearing.

In the brief time I had on the Canvas in the office, I didn’t notice the fans spinning up, but I also didn’t get to hammer on it. I’m very curious to test VAIO’s claims with a lengthy multi-threaded load to see if noise or heat is a dealbreaker. Stay tuned.

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My thoughts: Gordon Mah Ung calls it a Surface Pro 3 killer, but "killer" usually implies that the new product has the potential to overtake the established competitor's market share, but there's no way that's happening with a $2-3k heavy powerhouse tablet. Niche product, love the idea of it. But it's too much tablet for too many sacrifices.

Pros
That iGPU
Outperforms basically all but gaming laptops.
Support for dual 4K monitors, and the hardware powering it actually makes it a viable mobile workstation.
Keyboard is included

Cons
Short of winning the lottery or doubling my salary, I don't know if I could ever bring myself to spend 2 grand+ on a laptop/tablet.
A bit heavy for tablet use
Keyboard doesn't physically attach to the tablet (except when closed/charging), so lap usage is out of the question.
Cameras seem to be potatoes. Not that cameras on tablets really matter, but you'd think the front camera would be better since it's probably the only one people would use on this tablet (skype and whatnot).
People may be turned off by Haswell when the rest of the pack updates to Skylake (although realistically it's irrelevant here).
The fans are probably barely doing the job of cooling that mobile i7 on steroids. I don't like the additional and probably difficult-to-repair points of failure.