Sony's previously owned brand VAIO is returning to the United States with the VAIO Z Canvas. VAIO recently announced the specs, price and official release date of the Z Canvas and is believed to rival the Surface Pro 3 from Microsoft and the new iPad Pro from Apple.
The VAIO Z Canvas boasts a 12.3-inch IPS display with 2560x1704 pixel resolution. The display has 3:2 aspect ratio and 95-percent Adobe RGB color-gamut rating, according to CNet.
The most impressive feature of the Z Canvas is its quad-core CPU. VAIO was able to squeeze in a 25-watt Intel Core i7-4770HQ into the device. The Haswell-based processor comes in with an Iris Pro 5200 graphics processing unit and 128MB of L4 cache.
With monster specs packed into a relatively small package, one of the biggest problems faced by devices like the Z Canvas is overheating. VAIO was able to remedy this by installing dual heat pipes on the CPU, which is then cooled by three fans.
With three fans cooling the machine, it will create noise. VAIO countered excessive fan noise by designing the fans with blades and rotational speeds that will cancel noise. The company claims that each blade on the fans counter each other's' noise. Noise was also reduced by using fluid dynamic bearings instead of the commonly used sleeved or ball bearing.
According to PC World, the VAIO Z Canvas has a detachable keyboard which is connected to the device via a proprietary RF technology in order to increase reliability. The keyboard locks in place with the main tablet using magnets and it charges automatically once connected. This same feature is introduced into the Google Pixel C. The VAIO Z Canvas also supports touch-and-pen input.
The VAIO Z Canvas comes in three different variants and price ranges. One model has 8GB RAM, 256GB storage space and costs $2199. Another model has 16GB RAM, 512GB storage space and costs $2,599. Finally, there is the model with 16GB RAM, 1TB storage space and costs $3,099.
The VAIO Z Canvas was released in Japan in May. The device was released in the US on Oct .5.