VAIO used to be a brand within Sony's electronics empire, but it was sold off last year. Now the new VAIO is going up against its former parent company in the smartphone space. The VAIO Phone is now official and is coming to Japanese carrier b-mobile on March 20th. North America? Probably not.

The VAIO Phone is an LTE handset with what appears to be a very clean, nearly stock build of Android 5.0. The design reminds me a bit of the Nexus 4. Here are the specs.

SPECS

CPU

1.2GHz Snapdragon 410 quad-core

RAM

2GB

Storage

16GB

Display

5-inch 720p

Camera

13MP

Battery

2500mAh

OS

Android 5.0

So it's more or less mid-range, but it's probably not new hardware. The VAIO Phone appears to be a rebranded Panasonic Eluga U2 with different software. That phone launched in Taiwan recently. VAIO is asking 51,000 yen ($420) for the VAIO Phone when it hits shelves. That's a little on the high side, but maybe this is just the first step toward VAIO becoming a real player in the Android ecosystem.

Source: b-mobile

Via: Engadget