Need help on buying Blu-ray Laptop

[perfecttime]

I am looking forward to buy my first Laptop and have researched alot but I am confused whether Acer Gemstone 8920, Sony Vaio AR or Dell XPS M1730... what would be the right choice for me....

:- Mostly I would use it for Complete Home Entertainment
:- Movies and Music would be the major criteria.
:- I am not too fond of games, little bit is fine.

? My biggest concern is whether I would be able to Burn HD DVD's + Blu-ray DVD's both with these laptops or not?

? Sharing & Downloading applications like Bittorrent & others would work with these Laptops or not?

? What kind of Virus, Malware & Trojan Protection Sorftware these Laptops would support?

??? Finally, most important of all questions whether it is the right time to buy a blu-ray laptop or shall i wait for some more time ? and is there any other better laptop that if you could please suggest me?

Please Advise,
Regards

Perfecttime

[rubberghost]

wait for MAC.

[dadkins]

Most of the AR series with BD have burner drives. Some have BD ROM drives
HD DVD is not an option.

Yes! They are like any other PC computer BT will work fine!

ANY AV/AT/AM you wish can be run on them. They are just like any other PC computer.

I bought one in Jan 2007(VGN-AR190G). Still runs great!
Has played every BD I have thrown at it.
Doesn't do too bad on games either, considering it is 2 years old now.
Up to you on whether to buy now or not.
My AR190G is currently updated to Profile 2.0 via PowerDVD 8 Ultra.
This one, oh yeah! It's Profile 2.0 also!

__________________________________________________ ____________________________

Originally Posted by rubberghost

wait for MAC.

Wait for a Mac? LOL!
People have been waiting for 2 years now for a Mac with a BD drive and an OS that will support BD playback!
I've had A BD laptop for 1.5 years.
Bought a second one last Saturday!

BTW, It's Mac not MAC

[perfecttime]

Thanks alot for advise, but do you have any idea if there are any chances or prices going down by summer holidays ?

[dadkins]

No idea really.
Buying from Sony Style, the prices usually stay right at what is posted.
You could shop around for a better price... like maybe Frys:

http://shop1.frys.com/template/notebook

[Mobe1969]

What about the Dell 1525's?

Although I can not find ANY info on the HDMI output. Eg, is it 1.3, is it 1080p? It is incredible that all the info readily available for other devices is just not there. And nothing googling either.

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by Mobe1969

What about the Dell 1525's?

Although I can not find ANY info on the HDMI output. Eg, is it 1.3, is it 1080p? It is incredible that all the info readily available for other devices is just not there. And nothing googling either.

HDMI ports on PCs generally are HDMI 1.1 or 1.2. There's really no 1.3 features that they could make use of, so no reason to include it. The PC ports are essentially just DVI outputs (which is signal compatible with HDMI) with HDCP copy protection and an internal SPDIF connection providing for basic (read 2-channel PCM, DD, or DTS) audio.

As for 1080p, it will certainly do that, and can do 1920x1200 for 23"-27" PC monitors.

Originally Posted by perfecttime

I am looking forward to buy my first Laptop and have researched alot but I am confused whether Acer Gemstone 8920, Sony Vaio AR or Dell XPS M1730... what would be the right choice for me....

? My biggest concern is whether I would be able to Burn HD DVD's + Blu-ray DVD's both with these laptops or not?

Welcome to the boards. Personally, I have read too many problems with Acer notebooks and Blu-ray to recommend them for Blu-ray playback, though I would hope that by now they've corrected their earlier mistakes.

Having used both Dell and Sony notebooks with Blu-ray, they are both well-designed and either can easily be configured to meet your needs. Also, both have Blu-ray burner options, so you can burn Blu-ray discs. Neither can burn or play HD DVD discs, but given that the format is extinct, that really shouldn't be much of an issue.

One thing I like about the Sony models is that they ship with WinDVD BD instead of PowerDVD BD (as the Dells do), which tends to have far fewer issues with title playback.

Originally Posted by perfecttime

? Sharing & Downloading applications like Bittorrent & others would work with these Laptops or not?

? What kind of Virus, Malware & Trojan Protection Sorftware these Laptops would support?

??? Finally, most important of all questions whether it is the right time to buy a blu-ray laptop or shall i wait for some more time ? and is there any other better laptop that if you could please suggest me?

None of the notebooks will have any issues with any of the software you mention. You'll want to get recent versions of whatever software you prefer (that are Vista compatible), but both machines are quite powerful. As for other machines, the HP Pavilion 17" model is available at a great price, but they only offer a Blu-ray reader (not burner) and don't offer a 1920x1200 display option. The Alienware Are-51 m9750 is also good machine, but is rather bulky (even compared to other 17" notebooks.

As for timing, prices on notebook BD drives will go down in time, but for the near-term future are likely to remain where they are. There's still a shortage of optical pickups for notebook drives, and with notebook makers selling more and more BD burners in their machines (and Apple likely to start this fall) demand will probably remain very strong through this year.

Hope that helps.

[Mobe1969]

JadedRaverLA, Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.

So basically the same audio wise you'd get out of optical cable.

How does it work with regions by the way? Like DVDs where it asks you and locks after 5 goes?

[pseudomaniac]

Regions work in this fashion just like DVDs from what I've seen so far.

Acer = bargain brand. If you want cheap and don't care necessarily about quality or longevity - go with it.

Dell, HP, Sony and Sony have their issues as well - but as long as you stay away from their "Budget" models, you get a decent machine.

Toshiba - I've not been impressed with their build quality in the least.

Oddly enough, I've never been a huge fan of Gateway's stuff (though it's now merged with E-Machines and Acer - both garbage brands) - but my GATEWAY M210 laptop has been an absolute tank. I still use it, I've upgraded it a few times (tho ram maxed out at 1.25gb ) and am using it right now. It's a great surf/burn/work machine - and fairly service friendly.

I'd stay away from AMD powered equipment - particularly in the mobile field as well. The Core2Duo has proven superiority in performance, power, and compatibility (yes, AMD still has issues with instruction sets) - and is only marginally more expensive in most cases if at all.

Additional laptop considerations for the new buyer:

Does it have a Mini-PCI slot? Sometimes wireless / modem / etc. are integrated - AND you get this slot. That's fine, or if the slot is in use by the wireless card - that's fine too. If in the future you want to pop the latest wireless technology in, it's a simple plug and unplug of the antenna, and a rock in and out of the card.

Ram slots - 1. Are the accessible? 2. Are they occupied? It's alot easier to add 2gb of ram to a machine that has a 2gb in one slot and get 4gb, instead of pulling a 1gb chip and leaving a 1gb chip to get 3gb of ram. Make sense?

HD Interface - It's probably SATA at this point, but I'd make sure. Laptop IDE drives are already getting scarce.

HD Speed - Laptop drives have varying speeds and cache in addition to size. 250gb means you can store alot more data than 120gb - but, is it spinning at 5400rpm, 7200rpm, or 10,000rpm(just coming available) - and how much cache does it have to buffer and burst transfers with (8mb, 16mb, 32mb, etc). - The Faster the spin and greater the cache - the faster things load.

Optical Bay - Manufacturers hate you to know this, but at the root of most of these fancy cases, all these optical drives are the same, with the same connectors, and are interchangeable. You may have to get faceplacte bezzles, rails and other attachments to make them fit - but since "thin is in" - they've been moving away from this. You get something with a standard footprint slimline bay, you can upgrade your optical drive to whatever you want later - which was the case with the M210 gateway I have, I had to dremel about 2mm off the corner of the outside bezel to put a $35 DVD Burner in it. I can handle that.

Battery Capacity - If you're going to be primarily mobile, look at the amp hour ratings on the battery. Normally, there's a low end battery and a high end one - but some lows are very shallow compared to other models. More amp hours - more unwired play time.

More than you ever wanted to know I'm sure....but good luck.

[Mobe1969]

I'm pretty comfortable with Dells and have used/had a few over the years.

I agree about AMD as well. I wouldn't touch one.