Sony's PC manufacturing division, VAIO, was spun out and sold off to Japan Industrial Partners last year. In the process, it shrunk down to about 250 employees and exited every market besides Japan. While it wasn't profitable last year, which makes sense for a restructure of this size, it expects to be floating on its own for this one.
This sounds like a SquareEnix ad…
They are also confident enough to expand back into the US.
This Autumn, which Paul Thurrott narrows down to October, VAIO will begin selling PCs through Microsoft's retail stores and website. The VAIO Z Canvas will be the first model to hit North America, which will have a PCIe 3.0-based SSD. The compute specs are less extraordinary as it is built around Intel Haswell-H and Iris Pro graphics. This is likely because the machine was previously released a few months ago in Japan, but it targets creative professionals so it should be sufficient in those areas. The high speed, PCIe SSD might even mask its weak points in typical usage.
We then get to the price. The VAIO Z Canvas will launch above $2000, which is much more expensive than the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. It comes with a stylus, keyboard screen protector, and no bloatware under the “Microsoft Signature PC” branding. We will probably need to wait and see if any pricing or last minute specification adjustments occur before launch, but this seems like it will have some issues unless the SSD is much larger than 256 GB as rumored.
Yeah…
How many people are
Yeah…
How many people are going to buy a surface knock-off from the company that already failed in the computer market once due to unrealistic expectations of demand for high-end high priced products?
My wife and I each have a
My wife and I each have a Sony VAIO Pro 13 Touch screen laptop. It is fantastic and has a PCI-e SSD with read speeds over 1,000 MBps and an excellent Triluminos display.
I would definitely buy one again when it’s time to upgrade.
Yes but VAIO is no longer a
Yes but VAIO is no longer a SONY brand, that BRAND was sold, and will the brand VAIO still represent a bit of the overpriced for the processing power mantra of the SONY VAIO lines that no longer exist!
I realise that and I mourned
I realise that and I mourned it when the news broke, but they have access to the same hardware and designs.
My VAIO Pro was not overpriced when matched against comparable Ultrabooks, it was in fact a better deal. The others did not include a PCI-e M.2 SSD.
For the customer shopping a
For the customer shopping a Surface Pro who is uncomfortable with not being able to pay over $2000 for the product…
Still disappointed in them not announcing an even more ludicrous “limited edition” SKU. Whats the hot color today? They did the metals, neon, and carbon fiber under Sony. Perhaps neon metallic grape carbon fiber for $3200?
P.S. that kick stand looks terrible. It’s like they took feedback on the Surface and tried to figure out how you could make a machine that is 150% impossible to use resting on your lap.
I dont get the point of
I dont get the point of “computers” like the Surface or these things.
The point of these Marketing
The point of these Marketing Department derived product lines, and their cousins the Ultrabook/Thin and light laptop designs, is to take relatively weak hardware, with the relatively weak cooling, and low cost at that cooling solutions, and charge more money. The goal is to produce a product that is more style at a cost to functionality, and for the most part cheaper to build, and sell it to the consumer at a higher price point/profit margin.
The entire Tablet/Ultrabook/Thin and light market, is a Marketing driven market creation in which to bring the average level of computing power down, and charge the consumer more money to get that processing power back again! It’s getting to the point in the laptop market that what was once sold as the regular from factor laptop running it’s parts at full wattage with plenty of robust cooling and no thermal throttling will only now be sold as a more expensive gaming/workstation SKU. Some of the current Lenovo “Gaming” laptop SKUs appear to be nothing more than the good old regular form factor laptops of the past, but are still less robust with the cooling and the available CPU/GPU solutions in them relative to those old but still good workhorse laptops as a desktop replacement of the past!
These tablets/hybrids are just not there compared to laptops that can be had at a more affordable price, and the more affordable laptops have more procesing power, and overall performance than these devices.
I’ll be looking for a Carrizo FX8800p based gaming laptop, to replace my HP probook, because it looks very likely that I will not be able to get a Carrizo FX8800p based laptop with the part running at its full 35 watt thermal envelope in a Probook, and I do want the Laptop I get to replace my current laptop to have the Carrizo part(Fx8800p) and an AMD discrete GPU for dual graphics Blender 3d rendering workloads. My only reason for buying the HP probook in the firs place was becaues Business laptops can still come with windows 7, and I hope there will be some Steam OS branded gaming laptops in the future, with that AMD Carrizo FX8800p(35 watts or bust), and AMD discrete mobile graphics! Blender 3d should run under any Debian based OS like Steam OS.
I think you’ll find a Surface
I think you’ll find a Surface is leaps and bounds faster than what is used as “standard corporate” laptops these days.
I’m on a Latitude E6440 while waiting it out for a SP4 and I would not consider giving it to my worst enemy. A surface class device is also around 5X thinner than this plastic hunk of junk.
I need my machine to be fast and portable, not a processing monster. Small form factor and SSD is what wins these days for 90% of people doing office tasks. You lusting after a crazy fast cpu for Blender are an edge case scenario.
But yes I do agree the VAIO is just profit taking. No way it should cost $800+ over a surface pro.
I will not have any device in
I will not have any device in my possession with any OS above windows 7! I will not have any tablet device in my possession running any other OS BUT a full Linux distro(never Android). If you have read the post you replied to you would realize that any device directly branded by M$ is not an option! I buy my PCs/Laptops from third party OEMs, and the OS will work for me, and not work for M$ in the background to collect all my personal metrics and move them onto M$’s cloud!
The VIAO, or any other brand of Tablet/Ultrabook/thin and light laptop, is just profit taking. Give me a Steam OS Based laptop/tablet, or Linux Mint based laptop/tablet. A laptop in a Damned full fat laptop case with a full fat cooling solution with a full fat CPU/SOC/APU, or get the F__K out of my face(This is my message to OEMs!!! tablet OEMs and laptop OEMs).
HP get a probook with the Carrizo FX8800p, able to be run at it’s maximum 35 watts, with a discrete mobile AMD GCN GPU, and shut up and get my repeat business. That Probook Brand is just there to get me the windows 7 downgrade, it was the main reason that I purchased my previous probook, and I’ll take 7, or a Good Linux distro like Mint/SUSE, etc!
On PCs/laptops windows 7 is acceptable, but not the M$ “OSs” after 7. I’m looking forward to Seam OS/Linux mint, and Vulkan and some future Blender 3d rendering, Gimp using, LibreOffice writing/spread-sheeting, etc.
Its way faster than the
Its way faster than the surface pro since its running a quadcore i7.
I’ve always known Vaio to be
I’ve always known Vaio to be overpriced for what they offer. This article is not surprising about the price.
No thanks the one Vaio I had
No thanks the one Vaio I had was a piece of crap freezing and crash a touchscreen that would randomly think it was being touched. And best of all when I finally got fed up and took it back to the microcenter I bought it at a Sony rep admitted that that particular hardware set had know issues and incompatibilities with Windows 8 BUT THEY SOLD IT ANYWAY so I will never buy a Vaio again even if they are no longer with sony
VAIOs were always good value
VAIOs were always good value second hand. In the second hand market, no one cares if it has an i7 and 1080p screen, so they end up priced next to same size and age lower spec laptops.