May 17, 2006 Sony yesterday showed off the first Blu-ray Disc enabled notebook computer - the VAIO AR which will be available next month. The Blu-ray drive will be available on the premium US$3,500 version of the AR, which has a17-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) widescreen display, uses Sony's XBRITE Hi-Color LCD technology and will play full 1080p HD resolution. In addition to supporting HD playback, the VAIO AR notebook is a multimedia powerhouse with the capability to record high-definition camcorder content to Blu-ray Discs. Now aspiring moviemakers can shoot, edit and burn their HD creation on a PC -- all in native 1080 resolution. Using an extensive suite of dedicated software applications, you can also edit high-definition footage and share it on Sony high-capacity BD-R and BD-RE Blu-ray Discs (up to 50 GB) or on traditional DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/+RW capitalizing on flexible storage, playback and recording.
The AR also has an HDMI connector and cable that connects to high-definition televisions for a larger viewing experience.
Packed with a host of entertainment features, the AR will ship with Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition 2005 and includes a built-in standard-definition NTSC TV tuner (select models) and onboard TV controls, so you can watch and record live television.
The AR Premium also incorporates an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics card featuring 256MB dedicated video memory.