Sony beats Apple as a photographer's computer

Hot shot: The Sony Vaio Pro 13 Ultrabook bests the MacBook Air for photographers.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a photographer in search of a computer will buy Apple. The company's long and close association with the graphics and photographic industries has resulted in the development of computer and display products that come out of the box already calibrated for colour and tone. Other companies have tried to break the iMonopoly without much success - but we keep looking.

In the past month, Sony has released a couple of products that are serious alternatives to the iDevices. The Sony Xperia Z tablet goes head-to-head with the iPad and the Vaio Pro 13 Ultrabook competes with the MacBook Air.

The Xperia Z costs the same as the iPad ($539 for 16-gigabyte Wi-Fi). It has a display resolution slightly lower than the iPad - 224ppi against 264ppi. When the two are placed side by side, displaying the same photo, there is no perceptible difference in resolution.

The Xperia has a 16:9 aspect ratio and the iPad is closer to 4:3, which makes the Xperia better for video and the iPad better for photos. It also means the default orientation of the Sony is landscape and of the Apple it is portrait. The Sony is thinner and lighter than the iPad.

The Xperia runs on the Android OS, which, in our experience and opinion, is better than iOS, particularly for file handling. It also has a microSD slot for memory expansion.

One thing about the Xperia may put it out of contention for photographers: the colour temperature of the display is some degrees kelvin cooler than true white, which means there is a faint yellow cast on the screen. Black-and-white photos look sepia-toned. There might be a firmware upgrade to fix this but Sony isn't saying. It says it has a policy of not giving advance notice of firmware features.

The Sony Vaio Pro 13 Ultrabook has no such issues. The high-definition (1920 by 1080) touch-sensitive display comes with multiple colour calibration tools. Sony's own tool set is built into its overlay of Windows 8 and there are also the excellent Intel controls that are part of the Ultrabook set-up. Whites are white and blacks are black and colours are rendered superbly on the Vaio Pro.

At this stage Apple doesn't have a MacBook Air with a high-resolution screen, but no doubt one is in the wings. At the moment the Sony Vaio reigns supreme. It is thin, light and looks beautiful, and it boots up in a few seconds. Does it have a fault? The track-pad is cranky, but you would use a portable mouse anyway.