VAIO is launching its first smartphone since the company spun off from Sony last year. The new VAIO Phone is a mid-range handset that will be available to customers of Japanese MVNO (budget wireless carrier) b-mobile.

It sports a 5 inch, 720p display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor and a familiar design that suggests VAIO may not have actually built the phone itself.

vaio phone_01

As the folks at Blog of Mobile noticed, the new VAIO Phone looks nearly identical to Panasonic’s recently-released Eluga U2.

Both phones feature 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 13MP rear and 5MP front cameras, and 2500mAh batteries. And both run Android 5.0 Lollipop software.

Like Panasonic’s Eluga U2, the new VAIO Phone has an IPS display, Qualcomm’s mid-range 64-bit processor, and support for LTE networks.

B-mobile sells the phone outright for about $422. Customers can also pick one up with a 2-year contract for about $33 per month.

The Eluga U2, meanwhile, costs about $254.

via Juggly and Engadget

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2 replies on “VAIO launches its first smartphone in Japan (and it looks familiar)”

    1. Quite agree, and the Nexus 4, despite being a 2.5 year old phone, has arguably better specs.

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