VAIO (not Sony) to launch a smartphone on March 12

VAIO, from Japan Communications, has announced that they will be unveiling a new smartphone into the market. March 12, 2015, is the date they have specified in the release, according to a Chinese website. The new smartphone seems to be a design borrowed directly from the previous parent company, Sony.

Japan Communications will be turning VAIO into a smartphone brand with the launch of the first smartphone into the market, and the first model number will be ‘JCI VA-10J’. The smartphone will hold Android Lollipop as the operating system and will run on a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset with a 1.2GHz quad-core processor. A display with an HD resolution of 720x1280 pixels, a 5MP front camera, a 13MP camera, 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage are the other features highlighted.

Going by the specifications of the new smartphone, it seems to be a mix between the Sony Xperia Z series (design) and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G (hardware). The device will be manufactured by Taiwan Quanta Computer.

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VAIO is not a part of the Sony brand. However, Sony only holds 5 per cent of the shares in VAIO. VAIO seems to be entering into the smartphone race by debuting a budget handset for starters. The move could be a study on how the market accepts the new smartphone brand, since Sony is allegedly quitting the smartphone industry.

Image sources: PC Watch, GSM Dome