Skip to main content

Vaio laptops are back, and they’re surprisingly affordable

The Vaio laptop brand is dipping its toe into the affordable space with a new series of notebooks featuring several impressive specs at prices under $950.

The new Vaio FE Series are currently selling at Walmart and Walmart.com and will also be available at Sam’s Club.

Two Vaio laptops against a black background.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

You might remember the legendary Vaio brand from a bygone era, known for its high-end build quality and cutting-edge design. The new Vaio is no longer owned by Sony, however, but that hasn’t stopped the brand from attempting a comeback.

The 14.1-inch notebook comes in three models, with Full HD anti-glare screens, two built-in speakers, a front-facing camera with a privacy shutter, a fingerprint scanner, and a precision touchpad, the brand noted.

The series is powered by 12th-gen Intel Core processors, which power many of the highlight features of the Vaio FE notebooks. These include THX Spatial Audio technology, which allows for a 360-degree sound experience that can be enjoyed over speakers, earbuds, or headphones, the brand added. The processors also allow for up to 46% energy conservation, which supports a battery life of up to 10 hours on each model.

The Viao FE series will be available at Walmart at Sam's Club.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Running Windows 11 Home as its operating system, the Viao FE Series benefits from such features as password-free unlocking, Focus Assist to block notifications, Microsoft Photos, and Snap layouts to better organize apps and windows. The system also features an Xbox Game Bar, which allows gamers to chat, track performance, and screen record.

The base model Vaio FE sells for $700 and features a 12th-gen Intel Core i5-1235U processor, 512 GB Solid State Drive, and 8GB memory. It comes in Black, Blue, Silver, and Rose Gold color options.

The mid-tier Vaio FE model sells for $800 and features a 12th-gen Intel Core i5-1235U processor, 1 TB solid-state drive, and 16GB memory. It comes in Black, Blue, Silver, and Rose Gold color options.

The top-tier Vaio FE model sells for $950 and features a 12th-gen Intel Core i7-1255U processor, 1 TB solid-state drive, and 16GB memory. It comes in Black, Blue, Silver, and Rose Gold color options.

This isn’t the first Vaio laptop to make a resurgence. The Vaio Z launched last year as an attempt to recapture the premium branding of the original line.

Editors' Recommendations

Fionna Agomuoh
Fionna Agomuoh is a technology journalist with over a decade of experience writing about various consumer electronics topics…
Acer Swift laptops get latest Intel chips, new color options
Acer Swift 5 equipped with Intel Evo Chip.

Acer has announced two new updates to its Swift notebook lineup, the Swift 5 (SF514-56) and the Swift 3 (SF314-512), which will both be available in June in North America.

While both Windows notebooks feature 14-inch displays, the current 12th Gen Intel Core processors, and Iris Xe graphics chips, the Acer Swift 5 is being marketed to the professional sector, with the Acer Swift 3 touted as an easy-to-carry device.

Read more
This tiny 2-in-1 was my most surprising laptop of 2021
Microsoft Surface Go 3 tablet mode.

I reviewed over 45 laptops in 2021, and some are the best laptops I've used in recent memory. Those include powerful laptops like the Dell XPS 15 OLED or portable wonders like the HP Spectre x360 14.

But one laptop surprised me the most: The Surface Go 3. It's Microsoft's smallest and least expensive Surface tablet -- and it certainly doesn't have the flashiness of the Surface Pro 8.

Read more
Heading back to school? Change these laptop settings first
Laptop running Windows 10.

Going back to school often requires you to upgrade your gadget, which can turn out to be a major expense. Thankfully, there’s a much easier way of making sure your devices are up to date without replacing them.

Your computer already hosts a number of tools that can be utilized to turn its performance up a notch. This guide compiles a number of quick and easy ways to make sure your Windows 10 machine is tuned to perform at peak efficiency before your semester starts.
Disable apps that auto-run at startup
A number of apps are often set up to run automatically as soon as you turn your PC on. Not only this, they also turn on additional programs in the background that run every time you switch your machine on.

Read more