Vaio A12 2 in 1 tablet, detachable hard KB base with hinge

https://vaio.com/products/a121/
Japan only right now (likely for a while, maybe forever, though the S11 did finally make it here, after a failed IndieGoGo campaign to bring it over).

Video in Japanese, though mostly visual =>

It also has a "stabilizer flap," which basically means this:

Was an issue, so instead of nixing the drop hinge, Vaio decided to make it more complicated.


Otherwise, it is also the first modern Vaio with USB-C**! It supports Power Delivery, but that's no guarantee that it can charge from USB-C. It also has the barrel jack charger on the KB base itself.

Weight/mass is ~600g for the tablet, ~600g for the KB base. Footprint is 305x211, so slightly larger than a XPS13 (for reference, since I have access to a XPS13). No written battery size, but given the recent Vaios, I'd expect it to be small and underspecced for the device.

Looks to use Amber Lake parts, so Intel Core-Y chips. RAM is soldered. 1080p 12.5" panel with 16.7mil colors, but Sony doesn't make laptop panels anymore, so the quality could be anything.

It has a folding RJ-45 lan jack in the KB base. LTE integrated. VGA port is still present, I could take it or leave it, since I do get some mileage out of that port at work (though an adapter would suffice as well).


Oh, well. It appears to be another miss from Vaio corp. The base model is >1000USD, so it's quite pricey for what you get.

I'm not seeing the market for this, other than Vaio fans in Japan.


** I'm wrong about this. Apparently, there was a brief run of Skylake era Vaio S11 models (even listed on Intel's TB website) with TB3 (and thus USB-C). All later models did not have it.

 

If anything, that hinge looks like a workaround rather than a solution to a problem that shouldn't have been there in the first place.