Sony 13-inch VAIO Z Refresh Coming With Core i5 and i7 and Other High End Goodness

Kevin PurcellSeptember 30, 2010

Sony is pushing their high-end Sony VAIO Z line of 13-inch notebooks out the door next month with some really eye-opening and wallet-opening specs. The new machines will be available in early October, according to Akihabara News (via Engadget). This is the same model that we previously reported on during CES in January and its optional built-in Wi-Fi hotspot feature, which will give users the ability to share their Internet access with up to five devices via the notebook’s Wi-Fi radio.

In addition, Sony is upgrading the processors in this series. Buyers can get an Intel Core i5-460M (2.53GHz), a Core i5-580 (2.66MHz), and the Core i7-640M (2.8MHz). The DDR3 RAM can be bumped up to 8GB. For storage these models come with either a 256GB or 512GB solid state drive installed. There also the option of a Blu-ray disc burner plus 1920×1080 resolution screen, for full 1080p high-definition video. NVIDIA’s GeForce 330M graphics card with 1GB of dedicated memory will power the graphics.

Specs like these don’t come cheap. Sony will charge your credit card $2,249.99 for the right to buy one of these machines fully loaded. That includes the optional carbon fiber colored casing. Cheaper models and combinations also exist.