Sony VAIO AR Notebook Overview

16. Sony VAIO introduced a new flagship series of notebooks to promote its Blu-ray next-generation video format, the VAIO AR, which replaces Sony's AX series in the 17" desktop replacement class. The AR's design was conceived from scratch, with black and silver colors chosen to match other devices in today's digital living room. The laptops in this series are merely 1.32" thin and extremely lightweight (8.4 lbs) for the class, although what they lose in thickness, they make up for in width and depth -- 16.4" x 11.8" -- resulting in a noticeably thick bezel around the screen.

The XBRITE screen, however, overshadows everything else with no difficulty. The standard models in the AR series, AR130G and AR150G, match the existing AX's WXGA+ (1440x900) resolution, while the AR190G, which is the premium, Blu-ray-enabled model improves on that with WUXGA (1920x1200) capable of 1080p resolution. The premium model comes bundled with one of the first Blu-ray Disc (BD) movies, House of Flying Daggers, which Sony showed side-by-side tonight, along with the DVD version. Contrary to what some have said, the difference in quality is instantly noticeable, and according to Sony, it is even more apparent on movies shot in HD (which HoFD apparently wasn't). AR190G comes bundled with an HDMI cable and an HDMI-to-DVI-D adapter so you can take full advantage of BD movies on your HDTV.The US price for the AR190G is $3,499, which is slightly lower than the Canadian (4000 CAD = 3590 USD) and UK (2000 GBP = 3760 USD) prices that we saw appear on Sony websites in the last two days.