Sony VAIO Series Gets Minor Facelift, Z Series Gets LTE
Sony has rolled out minor refreshes to its C, E, and S Series laptops, but mobile users will be happy to know that its ultraportable Z series now has LTE broadband as an option.
Sony apparently didn't let its entire list of product announcements slip at the Consumer Electronics Show. Rather, the company decided to save the news about a refresh of its ultraportable (but not an Ultrabook) 13-inch VAIO Z series until after the four-day media blitz quieted down.
The VAIO Z series is receiving an overhaul of internal configuration options, which include the latest 2nd generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, LTE mobile broadband, extended sheet battery, and RAID 0 solid-state drives (SSD). Also before checkout, consumers will have the option to paint the chassis with a Carbon Fiber Silver design (read: off-white). Also included is the Power Media Dock drive, an external peripheral that was packaged with the last Z series line, the . It connected to the laptop via a proprietary cable and featured a Blu-ray player and AMD Radeon HD 6650M GPU—an interesting way of maintaining portability without sacrificing high-end components. Starting price for the new Z series is $1,949.99.
The S series (13-inch $799.99, 15-inch $979.99) and E series are also receiving a boost in internal configuration options in the form of the latest 2nd generation Intel Core i7 processors. The S series will have the added option of an AMD Radeon HD 6470M (512MB) or AMD Radeon HD 6630M (1GB) graphics chip. A 1080p HD display comes standard on the 15-inch S models with IPS technology built in, which helps improve viewing angles and overall image quality. Like the Z series, the S series will also have an extended sheet battery as an option.
Rounding out the updates is the C series laptop line. Compared to the aforementioned updates the C series is merely adding two new design options for its 14- and 15-inch models: Kaleidoscope Pink and Geometric Black.