Sony VAIO VGN-AR190G

Not only is Sony's new VAIO VGN-AR190G Digital Studio the first notebook to feature Blu-ray technology, it's also one of the best equipped multimedia notebooks around. Of course, treating yourself to the latest technology comes at a cost; in this case, you'll pay a whopping $3,499 for the privilege.

The 1.3-inch-thick VGN-AR190G is visually stunning in more ways than one. Its sleek-looking glossy black exterior is offset by a silver VAIO logo with matching silver trim and port covers, but it's the 17-inch widescreen display that really catches the eye. The 1920 x 1200-pixel WUXGA+ panel displays high-definition video and utilizes Sony's XBrite HiColor technology to deliver a crisp, sharp picture with deep color reproduction. The screen's antiglare coating does a good job of deflecting ambient light, so background reflection is minimal and even less than that of the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650.

Below the screen are two integrated speakers with surprising power for a notebook. Just don't crank the volume up too far or the sound will distort. Along the top of the display is Sony's Motion Eye camera for easy videoconferencing and video chat sessions using the small microphone embedded in the lower bezel.

The VAIO's 16.4-inch-wide frame provides plenty of room for a full-sized keyboard and a generous selection of hot keys, including two programmable special function buttons for launching frequently used applications, speaker volume and mute controls, and an optical disc eject button. There's also a set of DVD/CD/TV control buttons for one-touch TV recording, rewinding, fast-forwarding, and pausing, while an AV Mode button launches Windows Media Center.

The touchpad maintains the same aspect ratio as the widescreen display, but it's positioned too far away from the keyboard. Also, the two mouse buttons are located on the edge of the front bezel and are subject to accidental activation while typing.

The power connector, one USB port, and a coaxial TV tuner port are located on the rear of the system, while all other connectors are conveniently placed on the sides. The Blu-ray drive is on the left. Behind a silver panel on the right side of the unit is an array of AV connectors, including a FireWire port, an AV-in port, S-Video in and out jacks, an HDMI port for outputting video to a larger HDTV, and a VGA port.

Along the front edge of the system are a bunch of indicator LEDs, SD Card and Memory Stick slots, a wireless on/off switch, and the lid release button. Included are an AC power supply/charger, an MCE remote control and IR receiver, a coaxial TV cable, and an HDMI cable with a DVI adapter.

Blu-ray is the latest optical disc format and is capable of storing five times as much data as DVDs, making it ideal for recording and playing HD video and archiving huge chunks of data. A single-layer Blu-ray disc (or BD) can hold up to 25GB of data, while a dual-layer disc can store up to 50GB. The VAIO's drive reads and writes BDs at 1X speeds, but it is backward-compatible with recordable DVDs and CDs. Thanks to its HDMI port, you can use this system as a standalone Blu-ray player or recorder for your home theater setup.

At press time, only a few Blu-ray titles were available. We checked out the jet ski scene in Hitch, and the picture on the Sony's 17-inch display was very sharp with no obvious artifacts. We were better able to appreciate the improved quality that Blu-ray brings to the table when we hooked up the VGN-AR190G to a 42-inch Dell plasma HDTV via an HDMI cable and kicked back to get the full movie experience. By the time you read this, you should be able to find about 100 Blu-ray movies on the market, with more to follow from seven of the eight major movie studios. Blu-ray's fluid menu structure, which allows movie-watchers to access options without returning to the menu screen, was absent.

After our viewing sessions, we hooked the VGN-AR190G up to a Sony HDR-HC1 HD camcorder via a FireWire cable (not included) and used Sony's DVgate Plus to capture HD video from the camera and store it on the VAIO. DVgate is fairly easy to use, automatically detecting the video source and prompting you to choose whether to save your video in HDV or DV format. We used HDV and were impressed with the video quality. We also managed to burn a BD-RE (rewritable) disc with our captured video; it, too, looked awesome on the high-res display.

Unfortunately, it took nearly 30 minutes to burn 4GB of HD video at the agonizingly slow 1X speed. Also keep in mind that you'll need to shell out $20 per blank disc. Nevertheless, at least you can write with this Blu-ray drive; Toshiba's HD-DVD drive offers no such capability.

The 2-GHz Intel Core Duo T2500 processor, dual 100GB hard drives running in a RAID 0 configuration, and 1GB of DDR2 memory give this system plenty of horsepower for multitasking, but the system managed a score of only 163 on our MobileMark 2005 tests, which is on the low side for this class of processor. However, we did not notice any hiccups when we tried to multitask.

The Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 GT graphics card with 256MB of video memory provides the 3D muscle necessary to handle today's 3D games and play HD video well. The VGN-AR190G turned in a respectable 68 fps on our F.E.A.R tests in autodetect (1024 x 768), and 37 fps in maximum mode. The AR190G's 3DMark03 score of 11,578 is also quite good.

We saw a good wireless range of 19.2 Mbps and 15.4 Mbps at 15 and 50 feet, respectively. Even though the VAIO is designed as a desktop replacement system, we were disappointed to get only two hours of battery life.

If you're chomping at the bit to start watching, editing, and burning HD video, the Sony VAIO VGN-AR190G delivers the goods. If your hedging between this Blu-Ray system and the HD-DVD-enabled Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650, the Sony gets points for its lighter, sleeker design (8.4 pounds versus 10.1 pounds), better graphics scores, and, of course, the fact that the VAIO's Blu-ray drive can write as well as read discs. However, these advantages don't quite justify the $500 delta between the Toshiba and Sony.