Sony VAIO Tap 21 Multitouch Mobile Desktop Review

Name: Sony VAIO Tap 21 Multitouch Mobile Desktop Review
Brand: Sony

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, February 04, 2014, 12:00 PM EDT

We continued our testing with SiSoftware's SANDRA, the System ANalyzer, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant. We ran four of the built-in subsystem tests (CPU Arithmetic, Multimedia, Memory Bandwidth, Physical Disks).

Preliminary Testing with SiSoft SANDRA

Synthetic Benchmarks

Though the Sony VAIO Tap 21 may seem like it's got a high-end processor at first glace--it is a Core i7 afterall--the particular model (the Core i7-4500U) is actually a low-voltage, dual-core chip. As such, it can't quite hang with the higher clocked dual-cores or quad-cores in the processor or multi-media benchmarks.

In the storage and memory bandwidth tests, the Tap 21 also trails the other systems. The system was configured with only a single-channel of memory utilized, which cuts down on the bandwidth significantly. In addition, the Toshiba Hybrid drive in the Tap 21 only spins at 5400RPM, so when the flash isn't utilized, the drive is pretty pokey.

Cinebench R11.5 64bit

Content Creation Performance

Maxon's Cinebench R11.5 benchmark is based on Maxon's Cinema 4D software used for 3D content creation chores and tests both the CPU and GPU in separate benchmark runs. On the CPU side, Cinebench renders a photorealistic 3D scene by tapping into up to 64 processing threads (CPU) to process more than 300,000 total polygons, while the GPU benchmark measures graphics performance by manipulating nearly 1 million polygons and huge amounts of textures.

The Sony VAIO Tap 21 performed about on par with the Core i3-2100 powered Asus ET2410. Once again, the dual-core chip in the Tap 21 isn't terribly high end, and can't compete with any of the quad-cores in the chart above.

Tags: Sony, Mobile, Desktop, VAIO, system, touch, Tap 21

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com