Sony Vaio Duo 13 and Vaio Pro Are First Haswell Ultrabooks to hit the Market — Available Today

The Sony Vaio Duo 13

So far as we can tell, Sony is the first vendor to bring the next generation of Haswell Ultrabooks to market. The Vaio Duo 13 and Vaio Pro are available today!

Intel, which announced Haswell proper back in early June, said previously that we wouldn’t see Haswell Ultrabooks until late in the back-to-school period. To our delight, at least a few Haswell Ultrabooks are already on the shelves ready to go! Here’s a roudup of what’s available from Sony so far:

Sony Vaio Duo 13

The Sony Vaio Duo 13 is a bigger brother to the Ivy Bridge Duo 11. With a similar, but seemingly different looking sliding mechanism, the Duo 13 follows in the same footsteps with a larger 13.3-inch 1080p display. Along with a more sleek looking chassis than the Duo 11, Sony is claiming up to 10 hours of battery life with the Haswell powered Duo 13. Here are the relevant specs:

• 4th generation (Haswell) Intel Core i5-4200U, i7-4500U, or i7-4650U processor (technical comparison of available processors here)
• Intel HD Graphics 4400 or 5000 (depending on processor)
• 13.3-inch touchscreen @ 1920×1080
• 4GB of 8GB of RAM (1600MHz)
• 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB SSD
• Ports: 2x USB 3.0, full HDMI, full SD / MS Pro Duo slot, 3.5mm headphone output
• Intel WiDi
• Active digitizer stylus
• Optional 4G LTE module from AT&T
• Available in silver or black
• 1.32kg weight, 19.5mm thickness

The Sony Duo 13 starts at $1399 and can be customized all the way up to $2619.

Sony Vaio Pro 11 and Vaio Pro 13

The Sony Vaio Pro, which comes in an 11.6-inch and 13.3-inch model, is the company’s new sleek and light performance offering with touchscreen. We think they’re replacing the legendary Z-series with it. Both sizes comes with a 1080p full HD display. At just 1.1kg, Sony says that the Vaio Pro 13 is the lightest touchscreen Ultrabooks in its class (with the reigning non-touchscreen champ still being the NEC Lavie Z, at 875g). The 11-inch model weighs in at 870g.

Both units are largely the same aside from the 13-inch model offering up to a 512GB SSD while the 11-inch caps out at 256GB. Here are the specs:

• 4th generation (Haswell) Intel Core i5-4200U or i7-4500U (technical comparison of available processors here)
• Intel HD Graphics 4400
• 11.6-inch or 13.3-inch touchscreen @ 1920×1080
• 4GB or 8GB of RAM (1600MHz)
• 128GB, 256GB, or 512GB SSD (512GB, 13.3-inch only, faster PCIe SSDs on 13.3-inch)
• Ports: 2x USB 3.0, full HDMI, 3.5mm headphone output, full SD / MS Pro Duo (13.3-inch only)
• Intel WiDi
• Available in silver or black
• Vaio Pro 11: 870g weight, 17mm thickness
• Vaio Pro 13: 1.1kg weight, 17mm thickness

The Sony Pro 11 Haswell Ultrabook starts at $1149 and can be configured up to $1619. The Sony Pro 13 Haswell Ultrabook starts at $1249 and can be configured up to $2219.