The VAIO A12 is a Windows tablet with a 12.5 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel display, a detachable keyboard, and an Intel Amber Lake-Y low power processor.
First launched in Japan late last year, the computer is now available in the UK and Europe for folks with a lot of spare cash to spend on a compact, lightweight, and not super powerful computer: prices start at around £1,999/€ 2,299. That’s about $2600 in US currency.
What you get for that price is a 1.3 pound tablet that becomes a 2.7 pound laptop when you attach its keyboard. The system comes with a pressure-sensitive pen and it has way more ports than you’d usually find on a tablet this small… although a lot of them are built into the keyboard dock.
The VAIO A12 has a magnesium alloy chassis, a 38 Wh battery and there’s a secondary battery in the keyboard. VAIO says you should get around 8 hours of battery life in tablet mode or as much as 15 hours of run time when using the keyboard and tablet together in laptop mode.
Other features include 4G LTE support, an 8MP camera on the back of the tablet, and a 2MP front-facing camera.
The tablet has a USB Type-C port, a headset jack, a fingerprint reader, and a SIM card slot. But the keyboard has three USB ports, HDMI and VGA ports, an Ethernet jack and an SD card reader.
Specs range from a Core i5-8200Y processor, 8GB of dual-channel LPDDR3 RAM and 256GB of PCIe NVMe storage to a Core i7-8500Y processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.
I’m not sure I could justify spending $2600 or more on a device with those kinds of specs/features. But it’s still kind of nice to see a portable computer that bucks the latest trends (like using fewer ports or buttons).
In Japan there are also models with as little as 4GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and Celeron 3965Y or Core m3-8100Y processor options, but it looks like VAIO isn’t offering those configuration options outside of its home country.
via WinFuture.de and Gizmodo.uk
(2.7 pounds with the keyboard attached) with
“now available in the UK and Europe”
Last time I checked, the UK still was in Europe and had not, due to plate tectonic movement become part of another continent. And the UK is still in the EU and its Single [economic] Market (in which price fixing and market sharing are prohibited under EU competition rules) until further notice or October 31, 2019 pending further can kicking.
This style of misrepresentation is also seen in the similarly geographically erroneous and discriminatory term “North America and Mexico”.
“But it’s still kind of nice to see a portable computer that bucks the latest trends”
No it is not nice at all when it is sold at a ridiculous way above reasonable price. This just is not going to sell when better alternatives are available at realistic affordable prices.
That price is certainly ridiculous. I would take it if someone gave it to me.
> “it’s still kind of nice to see a portable computer that bucks”
“This ain’t my first rodeo!”
(Did you mean to finish that sentence with “the trend”? 😉