In one corner, we have a 13-inch Apple MacBook Air and in the other corner, we have Sony’s VAIO Pro 13. Does the Sony VAIO Pro 13 have what it takes to defeat the exciting champion Apple MacBook Air 13-inch?

Sony is ready to bring its new refreshed design with extraordinary touchscreen technology running on Windows 8. Apple continues its iconic smooth look that feels more dated this time around. Its strongest capability is its 14-hour battery life.

Round 1: Design

VAIO 13 Pro: Sony brings a sleek design, encased in a magnesium chassis that runs on Windows 8. It’s as light as a feather, weighing just 453 grams. The screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels but its motion features are causing little problems. The hinges gave us a difficult experience when we wanted to adjust the lid. Sony did a great job of encasing the screen in a thin bezel.

13-inch MacBook Air: Apple continued with its classic design, an all-aluminum body with zero flex and smooth hinges that allow for easy lid adjustment. It still feels premium, but it’s getting a bit dated with its thicker bezel on the screen. The screen has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels.

We declare the first round a draw.

Round 2: Features

VAIO Pro 13: What sets this device apart from its tougher competitor, the MacBook Air, is its 1080p display with touchscreen capability, which feels more natural when interacting with your ultrabook’s display. It also has a full-size HDMI port and NFC support. The most interesting thing is that Sony has decided to put another USB port on the power adapter.

13-inch MacBook Air: Apple decided not to include a touch screen feature. You need a dongle to get videos from your MacBook Air. However, the fastest 802.11 Wi-Fi has been included in this ultrabook. The benefit here is that you can install both Windows and Mac OS on this machine, but our judges still give this round to the Sony VAIO.

Round 3: Performance

Sony’s ultrabook is equipped with a 1.5GHz Core i7 processor along with 8GB of RAM and the MacBook Air had a 1.3GHz Core i5 processor with 4GB of RAM.

In our multimedia multitasking performance test, the MacBook Air outperformed the Sony VAIO Pro and also performed better in iTunes encoding tests. The VAIO Pro took first place in the Adobe Photoshop image processing test, while the Handbrake multitasking test gave the same result. Both ultrabooks gave almost similar results and we call this round a tie.

Round 4: Battery Life

In the video download test that is usually done to see the battery life, the VAIO Pro 13 gave impressive results with almost 9 hours. Sony gives you the ability to upgrade the battery for $150 by purchasing an additional external battery. The MacBook Air gave more than 14 hours of battery life and we concluded that Apple set new standards in the ultrabook industry. Apple takes this round with a big difference.

Round 5: Price

Sony’s base VAIO Pro 13 model with a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM costs $1,249, including the 1080p touchscreen. The MacBook Air starts at $1099 for its base model which has a 1.3GHz Core i5 processor along with 4GB of RAM. However, Apple has the machine that is better value than its competitor, and as you can tell by its performance, this base version of ultrabook can be right up there with the VAIO Pro 13 version i7 processor. This round went to the Apple MacBook Air.

We gave the throne to Apple’s MacBook Air but we can assure you that the difference is minimal and if you decide on the Sony VAIO Pro 13 you will not regret it.