VAIO announces surprisingly affordable AMD Ryzen 4000 FL15 notebook

VAIO is introducing its first AMD Ryzen 4000 laptop with competitive pricing, available at first only for the Japanese market. The new FL15 model could be viewed as the first AMD-powered laptop that the company releases in Japan, but it is certainly not the first ever AMD device released by VAIO, since the Indian market already got the E15 model with Ryzen 3000 APUs back in January 2021.

Based on historical launch prices, VAIO is not really a company to release budget-friendly devices. Most models launched in Japan usually cost twice as much compared to similar builds available in the U.S., but the new FL15 is clearly an exception, as the starting price is set at around $710 (JPY 79,200). Granted, the specs are quite modest, with a Ryzen 3 4300U quad-core processor + Vega 5 iGPU, plus 8 GB of LPDDR4x RAM and a 256 GB NVMe SSD. The 15.6-inch display only gets an FHD option, and the design includes the flat palm rest and the tilt-up keyboard from the more expensive models. The FL15 is  not exactly thin at 20.5 mm and it weighs less than 1.85 kg (4 lbs).

Port selection is quite limited, with only a USB-C 3.0 and 2x USB-A 3.0 connectors plus an HDMI output and audio jacks. FL15 does come with a useful microSD card reader, though. There is also support for Wi-Fi 6 and BT 5.1., and the battery is supposed to last 7.5 hours. Color options include black, silver and white.

The VAIO FL15 will start selling on October 6 and users will be able to immediately upgrade the default Windows 10 Pro to Windows 11. Models with preinstalled MS Office will also be available for around $933.

Buy the 14-inch VAIO SX14 notebook with Intel Core i5-10210U processor on Amazon