Vaio PCs Are Returning to the US, at Twice the Price of a Mac

Vaio computers, which disappeared from store shelves outside of Japan after Sony sold the brand last year, will be making a comeback in the US this fall—with a hefty new price tag to match.

After years of watching its PC sales drop off, Sony decided to abandon its Vaio computers last year, selling the brand to a private Japanese investment fund called Japan Industrial Partners (JIP). The decision to exit the PC market to focus on mobile and tablets in part led to a net loss of $1.25 billion in Sony's fiscal year ending March, 2014.

JIP, meanwhile, rolled back the computers to just the Japanese market while it geared up for a re-release. The new Vaio corporation's CEO, Yoshimi Ota, told the Wall Street Journal the company plans to start selling PCs in US stores as early as October, and is eyeing up an expansion into the Brazilian market, too.

The machines, which include old designs as well as some new models, won't be cheap: the company says the starting price will be $2,199. That's almost $1,000 more than Apple's standard model MacBook and more than double the cost of Apple's most affordable machine.

"We are not interested in cheap models for everyone," Ota told the Journal.

Ota said the company is hoping to lure away creative professionals (who largely work on Macs) with the new models, but it will be a tough market to crack given the cult-like dedication of many Apple users. With such a high price point, it seems Vaio is hoping to rebrand as a new luxury model, high-end, high-performing machine to compete with Apple's MacBooks. But even a 15-inch MacBook pro is less expensive, at $2,000, than the starting price for the new Vaios and MacBooks top out at about $2,500.

It might make more sense for Vaio to focus on wooing gamers, who tend to prefer PCs to Macs. But, hey, who am I to tell the owners of a struggling PC brand how to stage their comeback?

Either way, it will be a bit nostalgic for some to see the Vaio returned to stores. Before I went to college, my parents bought me a pink Vaio laptop. I wanted it because I was a PC user and because the Vaio came in pink—I was a college freshman, okay—but it turned out to be a hearty machine that ran well into my Master's degree, unlike the MacBooks many of my peers had first year that crapped out before graduation.

But given the brand has only been around for about 20 years, nostalgia certainly won't be enough to revive Vaio. The company had better have some tricks up its sleeve if it hopes to compete with Apple in the US.