Sony's AR Blu-ray Vaio laptop goes on pre-sale

Watch out Canadia, looks like Sony's about to drop their 17-inch AR series Blu-ray equipped powerhouse laptop on y'all without any signs of remorse or goodwill for your credit card debt. The AR190 will feature a Core Duo T2500 2GHz CPU, 17.8-inch 1920 x 1200 XBRITE display, dual 100GB RAID 0 drives, 1GB RAM, 256MB GeForce Go 7600GT, VGA, S-Video, and HDMI out (presumably with HDCP), (external?) NTSC tuner, 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth, webcam, Memory Stick, ExpressCard54, and PC card slots, and, of course, that Blu-ray, DVD, and CD reader / writer this thing's here to deliver. You won't often hear us say this about a Sony laptop, but the $4,000 Canadian ($3,600 US) they're asking actually seems like a pretty decent deal, considering.

[Via Notebook Review]

[David Lewandowski @ May 15th 2006 7:50AM]

I wonder if it's 90999999999 degrees?

[james nahon @ May 15th 2006 8:36AM]

who ever heard of canada geting this stuff first??

this powerhouse is going to weigh a tonne!

[Shmee150 @ May 15th 2006 8:48AM]

I want one!

Except it is presumably going to weigh a ton having a hewawge 17.8" screen, and the border around that as well.

ShMeE

[Troy @ May 15th 2006 10:08AM]

200GB RAID HDD in a laptop is pretty sweet.

"1920 x 1200 XBRITE display"
means 1080p from the laptop monitor, really good resolution for a laptop monitor, maybe one of the few times that you will actually have to increase resolution from your desktop to watch a movie in its native resolution.

TV-tuner and HDMI is also pretty good.

I guess if money isn't an issue this is probably the best high-end laptop you can buy right now, but I'll wait until the Blu-ray drives become cheaper.

[Suntiger @ May 15th 2006 10:25AM]

Gaaaah! Why, oh why, Sony, couldn't you give us A FREAKING NUMBER PAD?

[Marc @ May 15th 2006 10:44AM]

too bad it has XBRITE. it's so reflective you can't see details when working with images and when watching movies.

[Xcitado @ May 15th 2006 10:48AM]

I think the Qosmio G35-650 is better for the money. Everything is almost identical and it's (presuming the price is @ $3,600) $600 cheaper.

Main difference is that the Qosmio has HD-DVD drive vs Sony's BluRay.

Isn't if funny that these two (Toshiba and Sony) are worked together on the Cell processor but can't agree on HD-DVD/BluRay.

[John @ May 15th 2006 10:53AM]

No such thing as a 17.8" display. If it's close to 17", it's a 17.05" display, which the industry simply calls 17". Notebook review's got it wrong. Even the add they show lists it as 17".

[Sergy @ May 15th 2006 12:47PM]

>>Gaaaah! Why, oh why, Sony, couldn't you give us A FREAKING NUMBER PAD?

Most laptops don't have number pads for space reasons, neither my Dell or HP laptops have it. You can buy a slim usb number pad for like $15; I carry one around just for excel.

>>too bad it has XBRITE. it's so reflective you can't see details when working with images and when watching movies.

Personally find the XBRITE to be very good. My HP has a similar thing called "Brightview" which is great.

The new Xbrite type displays do reflect light more since the LCD surface is very smooth and glassy but for those who appreciate the brighter, clearer, sharper aspects of the displays, the tradeoff is worth it. Sony's Xbrite technology is the combination of new pass-through and multi-layered anti-reflection coatings and dual lamps. The difference is very apparent when Xbrite vs non-Xbrite LCDs are compared side-by-side at CompUSA elsewhere.

[ShawnMichaelE @ May 15th 2006 1:59PM]

And so, how does it compare to an Intel Mac with a 17" screen? That would ne my benchmark.

[Mark @ May 15th 2006 2:17PM]

I was told by my manager that London Drugs, here in western Canada, would be the exclusive carrier of this series of laptops with bluray.

[Quentin @ May 15th 2006 4:29PM]

Where's this Canadia you speak of?

"Watch out Canadia, looks like Sony's about to drop their... "

[simon @ May 15th 2006 4:53PM]

#12. It's to the west of Canuckistan

[jesse @ May 15th 2006 8:05PM]

actually, toshiba came out with a similar product (less HD space, other minor details) that was a 17" widescreen, and it weighed somewhere around 4 pounds. i would assume that for the price, sony would attempt to get somewhere in this lighter range.

[nick c @ May 16th 2006 12:19AM]

i clicked on the link and it says whatever it is (no pics, specs, anything) is $10,000 and it says i have 1,000,000 sony points

wtf?

[ShawnMichaelE @ May 16th 2006 1:14PM]

"11. I was told by my manager that London Drugs, here in western Canada, would be the exclusive carrier of this series of laptops with bluray."

So in western Canada you buy a computer at a drugstore? And you get your drugs from ??? Oh, probably Columbia, same as the rest of us.

In any case, this new laptop seems to be an appropriate Sony response to Apple's stealing the portable music market. (Ouch!) Prior to this model the (Intel) MacbookPro was the leader in this size category even compared to Toshiba's 17". But don't jump just yet. Just wait a few months and I'm sure a new Mac will be around to once again kick the pants out of the MS based systems.

[Denis @ Jun 8th 2007 4:48PM]

Why do people take this. $4000.00 give me a break everything to do with burning to disk has droped in price because no one wants to loose the image on the disk because they fade away. why would anyone pay this price for Blue ray. this will cost $899.00 after a year.
buy a Mac and forget the problems PC gives to everyone, PC is Dead.