If you're a user of a recently-produced laptop, you may have found yourself needing to spend extra cash on a USB-C multiport hub so you can continue to use your old thumbdrives, external displays and optical drives. Vaio is having none of that nonsense for its SX12 mini laptop, which offers an impressive array of ports for such a small machine.
Once part of Sony, but now a separate entity, Vaio is celebrating five years of independence this month with the Japan-only release of a new mini laptop. The SX12's most notable feature is the abundance of available ports.
Spread down the sides of the mobile PC is a full-size HDMI out, a VGA port (remember those?), an Ethernet terminal, and SD media slot and an audio jack. USB-C is included for data or power, but there are also three legacy USB 3.0 ports too.
The SX12 tips the scales at 897 g (31.6 oz) or less (depending on configuration) and has a body footprint that's smaller than a sheet of A4 paper. Yet Vaio has managed to cram in a full-sized backlit keyboard and two button trackpad. There's a 12.5-inch Full HD display and, in a nice touch, when the clamshell body is opened, the keyboard is raised slightly for typing comfort.
Processing power comes courtesy of an 8th generation Intel quad-core processor supported by 8 GB of LPDDR3 RAM and up to 512 GB of SSD storage, and wireless connectivity is served up as Bluetooth 4.1 and 802.11n Wi-Fi (an LTE/Wi-Fi configuration is also available). Battery life is reported to be 13.5 hours for every 3 hours on charge.
Pricing for the Vaio SX12 starts at JPY 119,800 (about US$1,100, though there's currently no word on it being made available Stateside).
Source: Vaio (in Japanese)
Of course not! The Asian tech companies keep the best stuff for Asia and Europe, sometimes Polynesia.
Meanwhile North America gets the "feature reduced" versions. Phones with less RAM, storage, slower CPUs, Smart TV's with DVR function disabled.