VAIO is back with something small and surprisingly, it is not a laptop. The company is seeking new horizons by coming up with its own Android Lollipop smartphone, debuting a mid-range device with the model number JCI VA-10J on the 12th of March 2015.
The company was sold by Sony to investment firm, Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) back in February 2014. The smartphone is expected for a 12 March 2015 release, but we might get to see a brief teaser of the device at MWC 2015 which is happening from the 2nd to 5th of March 2015. Besides that, it appears that Taiwanese firm – Quanta Computer will be responsible for manufacturing VAIO’s first smartphone.
The phone has undergone benchmark tests and specifications have been revealed. Under the hood, the device sports a 64-bit quad-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB of RAM. It features a 5-inch 720p display with a 13MP camera on the rear and a 5MP camera on the front. The device will be single SIM phone, complete with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, along with 16GB of storage. It might have similar specifications to the Samsung Galaxy A5, but it is clear that the JCI VA-10J is a mid-range device the company is using to compete with current smartphone makers.
It seems VAIO is going in a totally different direction, but this direction might be in one direction – Japan. JIP caters specifically to the Japanese market and seeing that the VAIO brand is under JIP, it is likely that VAIO’s first phone will be a Japan only device. Let’s see if the device makes it way to international shores.
[Source: blogofmobile via GizmoChina]
