Sony Gulf on Wednesday unveiled its new line of Vaio notebook computers — including its much-anticipated Vaio T-Series Ultrabook — and pledged to further increase its market presence in the Middle East and Africa, or MEA, a top official said.

The thin and light Vaio T-Series Ultrabook — styled in tough magnesium and aluminium, and equipped with the latest technologies — is part of its Vaio Summer 2012 line-up, which also includes the S-Series and the limited-edition Z-Series, meant to mark the 15th anniversary of the Vaio brand. “We are very much focused on emerging markets, especially in the MEA region,” Sony Gulf IT marketing division general manager Kazutoyo Araki told Khaleej Times on the sidelines of the event in Dubai on Wednesday. “We want to be very active in this market and increase our presence.”

Araki stressed that functionality was at the forefront of priorities during the development of Sony’s Ultrabook. “An Ultrabook can be achieved by everybody, basically,” he said. “But while we were at the designing and engineering stages, we said that ‘we should not compromise functionality’. That was the focus point of its development.”

He said the UAE clientele are always keen to adapt to new technologies, even likening them to computer parts.

“They are like CPUs or storage drives, the UAE customer is very keen to be upgraded to the latest technologies, this is what we are exactly doing with our products. And the acceptance in the UAE market is very good, and we hope the customers in the UAE and MEA will enjoy Sony products.”

Sony’s Ultrabook comes in 11.6- and 13.3-inch variants, and is equipped with the latest-generation Ultra Low Voltage Intel Core processor and a solid state drive, or SSD, offering file access speeds of up to 10 times faster than a standard hard disk drive. An Ultrabook is a high-end subnotebook as defined by Intel, which are lighter and thinner but do not take away computing performance.

On the other hand, the Vaio S-Series is a full-featured mobile PC with powerful performance, and comes with an Intel Core i7 processor and SSD. The material used is lighter than aluminium, yet offers durability for those on-the-go.

The top-of-the-line Vaio Z-series was launched to mark the Vaio’s 15th year in the market. It is thinner and lighter than a standard Ultrabook, with the statement ‘15th Anniversary Collector’s Edition — Made in Azumino, Japan’ engraved on its hinge.