When Sony spun off its PC division as a new company called VAIO, Sony continued making smartphones. Now VAIO is making phones too.
The company has unveiled the VAIO Phone Biz, a Windows 10 smartphone with a 5.5 inch full HD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 proecssor, and support for Microsoft’s Continuum for phone software… which lets you connect a keyboard, mouse, and external display to run apps in a desktop view.
The VAIO Phone Biz will be available exclusively in Japan when it goes on sale in April. But VAIO’s laptops and tablets also used to be Japan-only before the company started offering them in other parts of the world.
What’s interesting is that the company’s personal computers tend to be feature premium hardware and high price tags, while the VAIO Phone Biz seems to be more of an upper-mid-range product.
It has 3GB of RAM, a 1920 x 1080 pixel display, and a 13MP camera, but the Snapdragon 617 chip is an ARM Cortex-A53 octa-core chip that’ part of Qualcomm’s new mid-range lineup, while the more powerful Snapdragon 820 will be fore premium phones.
The phone also has a USB 2.0 port rather than USB Type 3.0/Type C or faster, so the only way to use Continuum is via a wireless display adapter.
Other features include 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 4G LTE-A, a microSD card slot, a 2,800 mAh battery, and a mono speaker.
