Sony unveils BX Vaios for businesses

First range designed just for enterprise laps

Sony has announced new lines of Vaio laptops, including its first range designed specifically for business users and a new ultra-portable with a longer-than average battery life.

The Sony Vaio BX series, available from October, offers a wide range of configurations to match various business requirements, the firm said. The models offer a choice of screens. There are 14.1in, 15in and 15.4in WXGA versions, and the top-of-the-range BX model offers the option of a 17in Wide UltraXGA screen.

All BX series laptops are based on Intel's Centrino mobile platform. The entry-level VGN-195EP is based on a 1.6GHz Celeron while the flagship VGN-BX197XP features a 2GHz Pentium M. All also feature a finger- print-recognition sensor as well as a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) security chip.

"To date, this is the most complete Vaio offering for business," said Jun Koyama, IT director for Sony Europe. "It embodies our determination to provide professionals with quality and design values they can see and feel, backed by the level of support business requires in the real world." The Vaio BX series is priced from £944.

Also available from October will be the Vaio VGN-TX1 series, a 1.25kg ultra-portable with an 11.1in widescreen. This range is based on 1.1GHz or 1.2GHz ultra-low voltage Pentium M processors with 512MB or 1GB of memory.

These devices feature a high-performance six-cell battery pack that enables up to seven hours of use, according to Sony. Despite their small size and weight, the TX1 series models have a built-in DVD±RW drive.