Sony VAIO VGN-AR11S Blu-ray notebook

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...blu-ray/1.html

[GuardianStorm]

looks kinda cool , not a bad price for a laptop with BluRay either.

the XBlack screens rock, i just bought a new laptop (VAI), and the screen is amazing

[TURTLE786]

Looks like Sony are probably shipping this laptop below cost to get blue-ray in the home.

And the screen is very impressive 1920x1200 in 17inch widescreen - 2.2MP screen.. wow

[fev]

aaaah how to spend the student loan in sept. this or a macbook

[unrealhippie]

Originally Posted by fev

aaaah how to spend the student loan in sept. this or a macbook

Macbook £1000, Sony £1800.

Hmm, £800 beer money... well we have a winner.

[fev]

macbook pro: 1899.

but they both come with student discounts

[Starbuck3733T]

I'll never touch another sony notebook - I'm working with hundreds of laptops in an .edu environment and the sonys have a consistently higher failure rate, tons of preloaded junk, and they aren't physically well made for the abuse they need to endure.

IBM T series gets my vote everytime.

[unrealhippie]

Originally Posted by fev

macbook pro: 1899.

but they both come with student discounts

You said macbook which is £1000 not mbp

Still - hmm its nice..

[kickarse]

Laptops very nice. I'd buy it over a macbook... and just run Ubuntu

[Sinner666]

I'd take the macbook. It looks prettier and I have no practical use for a blu-ray burner or drive.

[modster]

Originally Posted by Starbuck3733T

I'll never touch another sony notebook - I'm working with hundreds of laptops in an .edu environment and the sonys have a consistently higher failure rate, tons of preloaded junk, and they aren't physically well made for the abuse they need to endure.

IBM T series gets my vote everytime.

i'll probably get flamed but i really like the sony style look. yea, it does come with tons of preloaded junk but so is windows . i am not sure about the failure rate. i have been using a vaio for 2.5 years now and its still running fine. and yes, IBM is like the best, but i simply cant afford one.

anyways, i cant imagine anyone buying that laptop just for the blu ray. i dont see the point of having this blu ray thing in the first place. with hard drives that cheap these days, i hardly burn anything. well, maybe its good for movies and etc. but i cant imagine how it gets better than DVD.

[Sinner666]

Originally Posted by modster

i'll probably get flamed but i really like the sony style look. yea, it does come with tons of preloaded junk but so is windows . i am not sure about the failure rate. i have been using a vaio for 2.5 years now and its still running fine. and yes, IBM is like the best, but i simply cant afford one.

anyways, i cant imagine anyone buying that laptop just for the blu ray. i dont see the point of having this blu ray thing in the first place. with hard drives that cheap these days, i hardly burn anything. well, maybe its good for movies and etc. but i cant imagine how it gets better than DVD.

No one NEEDS blu-ray but apparently for the big videophilies of the world its required.

Personally give me a couple of 750gb drives instead of a single blu-ray drive.

[DXR_13KE]

i hope this technology evolves and gets cheaper so i dont have to sell some organ to buy this.

[Boswell]

Modstar maybe you don't realise what blu-ray can offer us? 50 gb on 1 disc means (at least..) 1 full length high definition movie... DVDs cannot offer this.
So what you don't burn anything, does that say that everyone else doesn't burn anything?

Now you say that hard drives are so cheap these days... they are hardly going to sell hard drives in HMV though are they? And our internet connections internationally simply aren't fast enough (as of yet) to download high definition movies in a quick reasonable time (or at least to stream them). Therefore this is why blu-ray is needed.

Also people may actually buy this laptop for the blu-ray capability, say that they need a laptop for univerisity and don't plan to buy another computer for the next 5 years. Then having one with blu-ray would certainly - in Sony's eyes - secure you for the future in watch films at least.
Ed

ps imo Windows (XP) doesn't actually come with junk software if you actually look at what they put on there.

[chunky_monkey]

Like TURTLE786 said it's probably a loss leader to rope people into the Blue-ray camp. That is a good price for that machine considering the spec and Sonys usual habit of going all Bang & Olufsen (style not spec = high price).

I'm going to wait and see which format becomes the new betamax before commiting! Modster, you say it can't get much better than DVD but HD video is going to make DVDs look like floppy discs

Would be nice to see super high sample rate music appearing so digital becomes more like vinyl but thats a whole other can of worms.

[Nature]

Me wants it... Inner peace can almost be achieved by buying this thing! But unfortunately it doesn't have a high definition beer dispencer...

[Firehed]

Originally Posted by kickarse

Laptops very nice. I'd buy it over a macbook... and just run Ubuntu

There goes your blu-ray support then.

I've made a vow to never touch another Sony product again, and I plan to stick to it. It seems like a nice system, but I'd never consider a notebook that's so not portable. I know it's more intended as a DTR with specs (and size) like that, but I'll always take a proper desktop system.

I'd hate using a 1920x1200 resolution on a screen that small... I'm sure it's wonderfully sharp for video, but things would be uselessly small for reading text and whatnot (unless you increase the DPI, and then there goes your extra screen space). Of course I'm used to using every pixel of my 24", but the size seems just right on that.

Plus I wouldn't even consider buying a drive of a HD format until one has won. Boswell is right in saying that we simply can't fit a full-length HD movie on a DVD (you can get extremely close if not outright make it with XviD encoding, but certainly not with standard DVD formatting), but my limited viewing of HD material has left me substantially less than impressed. I'm skeptical of both, but I'm confident that price will end up winning out, so HD-DVD will probably win unless people DO buy a PS3 as a bd player rather than a severely overpriced games console.

[automagsrock]

Hey look, this has become a "bash the PS3 and Sony" thread. I was wondering how long it'd take to become that.


I would buy this notebook as a notebook and a desktop replacement. I own more Sony things then I care to mention and have never had a single problem with any of them. (except for my first home theater reciever getting fried when our house was struck by lightning) The fact that this has a blu-ray player and it is (relatively) cheap for what all it has is enough of a selling point for most people. And like boswell said, until every single person in the world has a fiber connection to their home, blu-ray and HD-DVD discs are needed.

Umm, sorry to ramble. Nice notebook and a nicely written article.

[Firehed]

Originally Posted by automagsrock

Hey look, this has become a "bash the PS3 and Sony" thread. I was wondering how long it'd take to become that.


I would buy this notebook as a notebook and a desktop replacement. I own more Sony things then I care to mention and have never had a single problem with any of them. (except for my first home theater reciever getting fried when our house was struck by lightning) The fact that this has a blu-ray player and it is (relatively) cheap for what all it has is enough of a selling point for most people. And like boswell said, until every single person in the world has a fiber connection to their home, blu-ray and HD-DVD discs are needed.

Umm, sorry to ramble. Nice notebook and a nicely written article.

I wasn't specifically bashing Sony. I find that screen size/resolution fault for most notebook screens, and would have said the same thing if it had an HD-DVD drive (though as I indicated, I think it's more likely to win, again solely due to price). As for the first bit, it's personal preference entirely - I both hate Sony and DTR notebooks, but to each his own.

It was a well-written article, and most certainly a capable notebook, but it's not a system for me. Because I think DTR-type systems are stupid, because I have a personal vendetta against Sony, and because I think it's absolutely pointless to spend that much extra for a next-gen drive of either format until there's a definite winner.

[mikeuk2004]

Nice laptop. Could be what im looking for to upgrade from my A217M in the near future. My 2 Sony laptops have been great and no problems. As with the preoaded junk, so what. You have a remove software feature in windows. I removed pretty much all of the preloaded crap and doesnt bother me. You get it with all pcs and laptops anyway.

I like the specs like the 200GB hard disk. That would be sweet compared to my 80gb.

I give mine another year before I buy another Sony Laptop. There will be an even better spec then and blue ray movies by then