Sony Vaio AR notebook plays full hd with blu-ray drive

[jakesully]

for $3000.
What do you guys think?
I say its a damn bargain given that you get Full 1080 HD on your lap and a blu-ray drive.
Portability alone is so worth it.

Here's the laptop with 17" WUXGA TFT with XBRITE-HiColor Technology.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...52921665061591

[dadkins]

I bought an AR190G in January(the original Blu-ray laptop).

Yeah, the AR Series are great!

[jorg]

personaly id get 2 gigs or ram to be safe

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by jorg

personaly id get 2 gigs or ram to be safe

Cheaper to get the Crucial 2GB kit:

http://www.crucial.com/store/listpar...l=Sony&cat=RAM

[jakesully]

are you guys serious about doubting if the AR series will play blu-ray smoothly without lag???
hello...its "made to play blu-ray" with a built in blu-ray drive.

bump too hehe

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by jakesully

are you guys serious about doubting if the AR series will play blu-ray smoothly without lag???
hello...its "made to play blu-ray" with a built in blu-ray drive.

bump too hehe

Hello!
I OWN one!

[phil]

3000 DOllars? That's alot of money just to play Blu Rays, my M1710 plays Blu Rays and it didn't cost 3 grand and I'm also pretty sure that in a Mark3d score it would dominate the Sony Wallet Eater.

[w_tanoto]

$3000 is not expensive. We, in UK, have to pay £1999, which is approximately USD4000.
The latest series in UK is AR41S.

This laptop is on my shopping list, and will buy it if HP failed to provide a BD laptop before my computer breaks down.

[mtl007]

I don't see any mention of hdmi output in the spec. It would have made the unit a lot more useful if it can double up as a full HD player to external devices that are bigger than the laptop screen.

Personally, I can't imagine that the difference on a 15 inch widescreen HD (vs non-HD but upscaled) is that noticeable to make the investment worthwhile.

[phil]

3000 for a notebook that doesn't even have 256 dedicated memory is pretty bad, in fact it's not pretty bad, it's VERY bad. http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...52921665061591

They don't even mention the videocard, so chances are it's Intergrated shared memory with a video solution that is Intel Based. My third laptop, a work computer given to me by my company, is a 15 inch FS series, and that was garbage on graphics as well. I know a ton about notebooks, and trust me when I say Sony offers the Worst Video Solution amongst all laptops. I mean agree that not eveyone plays games so video solutions aren't all that important but when you're spending 3 grand and you want Blu Ray to look good and everything, having non dedicated video memory is absolutely CRAZY! Again 3 grand.

I woudn't even hesitate to ask the Super Moderator of this forum for his opinion, he owns the same notebook as me M1710. Again if you're spending above 2 grand you should be entitled to dedicated Video. But all Sonys are expensive and cheat the customer out on graphics, and if you're willing to buy into it, you're buying into the name. Buying into a name for PC's is not a great idea considering the components are all made by differnt companies.

[jakesully]

Originally Posted by phil

3000 for a notebook that doesn't even have 256 dedicated memory is pretty bad, in fact it's not pretty bad, it's VERY bad. http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...52921665061591

They don't even mention the videocard, so chances are it's Intergrated shared memory with a video solution that is Intel Based. My third laptop, a work computer given to me by my company, is a 15 inch FS series, and that was garbage on graphics as well. I know a ton about notebooks, and trust me when I say Sony offers the Worst Video Solution amongst all laptops. I mean agree that not eveyone plays games so video solutions aren't all that important but when you're spending 3 grand and you want Blu Ray to look good and everything, having non dedicated video memory is absolutely CRAZY! Again 3 grand.

I woudn't even hesitate to ask the Super Moderator of this forum for his opinion, he owns the same notebook as me M1710. Again if you're spending above 2 grand you should be entitled to dedicated Video. But all Sonys are expensive and cheat the customer out on graphics, and if you're willing to buy into it, you're buying into the name. Buying into a name for PC's is not a great idea considering the components are all made by differnt companies.

I understand what you're saying, but im not inte games like Unreal or FEAR...what i love about this vaio ar370 is its WUXGA TFT with XBRITE-HiColor Technology(very dark black and very crystal bright whites), its full 1080p HD, blu-ray drive(this alone is worth hundreds), and full hd portability/privacy.


Why would sony sell a notebook with a blu-ray drive and have inefficient memory to run it properly?

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by jakesully

Why would sony sell a notebook with a blu-ray drive and have inefficient memory to run it properly?

They don't!
The AR Series play Blu-ray Discs perfectly - it's what they are designed to do!

Don't trip jakesully! The AR will work great - mine does!

[phil]

Ok well 3 grand for a notebook when you don't even know what the dedicated memory is and I assure you it's not 512mb, is pretty bad. But that's my opinion if you really want a sony then I suppose you really want a sony, someone must be buying and liking sony Laptops beacuse they do sell a bunch of them. I won't argue that. Oh and there is a difference between running it, and running it Optimally.

My Dell XPS m1710 is also Xbrite or whatever (glossy and ultra bright). Xbrite Monitors aren't even made by Sony, they're made by Sharp. Lastly sony's customer technical support blows from my experiances with my company notebook, but if you really want it go right ahead and jump in and get it. I hope everything works out for ya.

[phil]

Final Post in this thread here I'm done talking about it, I'll let the reviewers say all:

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/sony...&tag=pdtl-list

"In general, this notebook's price seems hard to justify, with respect to its features. For example, when it comes to screen size, the average price of general-purpose products with a similar screen size is considerably less -- right around $1,996. " ~What I've been saying all along.


And then the Dell M1710, http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell...tag=prod.txt.2
Editor's Choice Award, I didn't even realize it won that.

[dadkins]

Yo, phil...
Display
Screen or Display Technology: WUXGA
Screen Size: 17"
Resolution: 1920x1200
XBRITE HiColor™ Technology: Yes

Uhm... this is a vintage May 2006 laptop

Want to know another factoid?
I have another VAIO over on the desk from August 2004 with the same screen.

One last item for you... these screens were manufactured in 1990 & 2002, respectively.

A190:
Monitor Name Sony Notebook LCD (1920x1200)
Monitor ID MS_0026
Manufacturer Sony Corporation
Manufacturing Date 1990, Week 0
Analog Display Input Input Voltage - 0.700V/0.300V
Display Size 19.7" (40 cm x 30 cm)
Current Resolution 1920 x 1200 @ 61Hz - Aspect Ratio 16:10

DPMS Mode Support Active Off, Suspend, Standby

AR190G:

Monitor Name Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor ID MS_0040
Model t Flat Panel
Manufacturing Date 2002, Week 45
Digital Display Input
Horizontal Frequency 29-75 kHz
Vertical Frequency 0-60 Hz
Current Resolution 1920 x 1200 @ 60Hz - Aspect Ratio 16:10
Max dot clock (video bandwidth) 170 MHz
DPMS Mode Support Active Off, Suspend, Standby






EDIT: Here friend, My AR190G:
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/sony...&tag=pdtl-list
Intel Core Duo T2500 processor (2.0GHz)
1GB of DDR2 SDRAM (maximum capacity 2GB)
200GB 5,400rpm SATA hard drive
Optical drive writes (at 1X) and reads (at 1.6X) Blu-ray discs (BD-R, BD-RE, BD-ROM), and just about any other format you care to throw at it
17-inch wide-screen display, 1,920x1,200 (WUXGA)
Nvidia GeForce Go 7600GT graphics card (with 256MB of VRAM)
Windows XP Media Center 2005
Video connections: TV tuner, HDMI output, S-Video input and output, VGA output, FireWire
Audio connections: S/PDIF, headphone, microphone
Other connections: PC Card, ExpressCard, 3 USB 2.0 ports
Network connections: Bluetooth, Intel PRO/Wireless 802.11a/b/g, Gigabit Ethernet, 56K modem

[phil]

7.5 isn't really a great score, what is your 3dmark score on that thing? Download http://www.futuremark.com/ And run it, and then post your score up. I scored a little over 9,000

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by phil

7.5 isn't really a great score, what is your 3dmark score on that thing?

Which version of 3DMark?
Not that I really care about synthetic benchmarks...

[phil]

http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/

These scores are pretty much used on all PC's from laptops to desktops. And they're not just a bunch of BS synthetic stuff nor is it random. It's a good way to measure the performance of a paticular computer.

[phil]

Oh on 06 I scored a little over 5,000 sorry, and on 05 the previous version I scored a little over 9,000.

[dadkins]

http://service.futuremark.com/orb/re...=0&UID=7440377

Pretty sure the newer AR Series will score higher.