Vaio has launched two new laptops in the UK and Europe - the SX14 ultraportable and the A12 2-in-1. 

Both are premium devices, with the 14-inch SX14 starting at £1,699 and the 12.5-inch A12 starting at £1,999. For those prices you get some truly high-end specs including up to 4K screen, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSDs and 8th gen Core i7 processors in the SX14. The A12 comes with its own digital pen. 

Vaio was spun off from Sony in 2014 and the Japanese firm has licensed sales of these devices to Trekstor in Europe. According to Trekstor's marketing head Simon Wiedemann, the brand wasn't launched in Europe immediately because of the huge amount of localisation needed but that there is a huge amount of goodwill towards the Vaio brand.

"If someone sees one...they'll instantly recognise it's a Vaio device. They've maybe been very happy with [their old Vaio] and that's the reason they will buy a new one. There's still a lot of love [for the brand] among people."

 

Theres a new Vaio laptop and a 2-in-1 too image 2
Vaio

One interesting selling point is that, unlike many new ultraportables, the Vaio devices have numerous legacy ports including VGA for connection to older displays and projectors and an Ethernet port, too. There's also HDMI and both USB-C and USB-A as well as 4G support. 

Vaio also says it has modified the cooling tech around the SX14's processor for increased performance - we'll see how that works out when we review it. 

We also spoke to Wiedemann at length about the relaunch and we'll bring you that interview soon on Pocket-lint.