Sony Duo 11 Enough for Development work?

I am looking to get a new Win8 Development laptop/tablet/ultrabook.

I would like something portable, however enough power to run Visual Studio 2012, VMware Workstation, etc.

Current Duo 11 owners, will this machine be powerful enough?

I like the idea that I would be getting a laptop type performance along with the tablet/touchscreen functionality.

I am just worried that the CPU might not be enough at the default 1.8GHz.

Thanks!

 

It's been three months running now and I love mine so far. No problem running VS Express 2012 and two instances of Eclipse at the same time. The CPU is adequate for me but it really depends on what you're coming from. It's not going to blow the doors off of a recent gen full size laptop but compares favorably to my ~2008-ish Macbook Pro so I've been happy with it.

Have not installed VMWare or VirtualBox yet. I have been meaning to but can't bring myself to sacrifice any more of the limited free SSD space I have left.

The Duo form factor has proven time and tme to be a highly functional design -- I love it. However, after three months I do still miss the 16:10 screen ratio for just about all tasks.

I would love love LOVE to hear a reasonable defense of the 16:9 form factor that Windows 8 is pushing.

 

I've been using hyper-V to run virtual machines for some legacy apps that I need, and I found things to be very snappy. I came from a last generation Vaio Z (VPCZ1) with a full i5 (not ULV), and I honestly can't tell the difference in speed. If anything the Duo seems better with multitasking, better with heavy apps like photoshop, and better at pushing an additional monitor. I don't know about 16:10... but I DO wish Sony had
1.Put the front camera on the bottom of the screen or at least angled it so that it could be useful at the angle the Duo's screen sits
2. Shoved a 13 or 12.5" screen into the Duo... it seems there's really little reason for the huge bezel the Duo has to suffer with.

 

Its run everything I've thrown at it. I run VirtualBox for my virtual and have had no issues. It doesn't feel like I tax it at all. I don't use Virtual Studio any more so I can't comment.

If this thing had a desktop dock with discrete graphics I could use it as my only machine.

 

I wish it had 16GB of memory to run more VMs, but that's about it. It works fine for heavier things. If space is an issue, just get an external USB 3 SSD. Done. I run my VMs that way and they are fast. The Duo seems snappier in many respects than my Panasonic J10 which has 16GB of memory.

 

I do most of my dev on duo. I run visual studio inside a vmware virtual machine. It works fine but you should get the 8gb version. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse, and and have a quad monitor setup when at my desk. A vga and a hdmi monitor directly attached and another attached via a usb hub. All good. I do wish it had more memory though, it slows down when running 2 vms.

 

That sounds like a sweet setup, SeanX!

And thanks for suggesting the USB3 SSD, Fender -- that sounds like a great solution to the disk space issue.