The centre of attention

VAIO users expect the best performance from their notebooks whether designing a presentation for an important meeting or relaxing with a film or a favourite album after work is done.

The seamless integration of a panoramic 17” widescreen WUXGA display, hybrid (digital and analogue) TV tuner and the latest graphics technology helps to transform the AR Series from a high-powered notebook into a portable home entertainment centre or games platform.

WUXGA Resolution
Short for Widescreen Ultra Extended Graphics Array, the WUXGA display on the AR Series has an exceptionally high 1920×1200-pixel resolution and a 16:10 screen aspect ratio. This makes it possible to watch High Definition movies and video footage at their native resolution of 1080p without having to reduce the quality in order for the image to fit on the screen.

When not working with HD files, the screen provides a huge desktop space for working with multiple applications and allows you to get the most from DVD playback and video gaming. Because the display ratio is also the format of most films, modern TV shows and computer games, whatever you’re watching always fills the screen.

And as this ratio is also much closer to the actual field of vision of the human eye than the traditional square shaped screens found on older televisions or computer monitors, it is always a superior viewing or gaming experience.

Videoconferencing made simple

The addition of a built-in Sony Motion Eye videocam and microphone brings another dimension to computing, allowing you to challenge and communicate with game opponents over the internet, but what’s more, it makes videoconferencing simple.

Easy to use, with integrated auto focus and auto brightness, it helps you get people to see the bigger picture, whether you’re communicating with the office while on the move, or just chatting online with absent family and friends.

Turn your computer into a phone
And keeping in touch is made even easier with the inclusion of Skype, an application that allows you to use your AR Series as a phone. Using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Skype converts speech into data that can be sent and received online, meaning that as long as you have a high-speed internet connection, you can call anyone, anywhere in the world. As it uses the web to make calls, the only cost is the cost of your internet connection.

TV you control

The AR Series incorporated hybrid TV tuner, complete with remote controller, guarantees that you’ll never miss your favourite shows. Able to receive digital and analogue signals and configured with Microsoft Windows Media Centre Edition software, the AR Series lets you watch, record and store TV programmes. Search all available stations for your favourite types of show and highlight the programme you want to watch or record and the AR Series takes care of everything else.

And if you’ve set the AR Series to record a show while you’re out and return home before the programme has ended, there’s no need to wait for it to finish. Simply start watching it from the beginning and the AR Series will ensure that the show continues to record. But the benefits don’t stop there.

As well as organising recorded shows and TV schedules, with Windows Media Centre you can also create music libraries and manage music downloads, manage and organise your digital photographs and video clips, or create slideshows. And as it works seamlessly with the AR Series remote controller, you can change channels, pause an album track or skip to a DVD’s bonus features without leaving the comfort of your chair.

Colour like never before

However you choose to use the AR Series formidable entertainment features, the X-Black dual lamp technology behind its screen guarantees brilliant colours, sharp contrast and crisp graphics.

Thanks to the high brightness level of an X-Black display, all dark colours appear richer while white tones lose none of their brilliance. The result is a colour fidelity as accurate as the human eye whether viewing photographs, playing games or working with documents.

Whereas most LCD displays use just one lamp to illuminate the screen, the X-Black display in the AR Series uses a dual-lamp system that produces a brighter, more consistent display by distributing light evenly across the entire screen. Meanwhile a special, multilayer anti-reflection coating on the screen’s surface reduces glare and unwanted reflections, both of which reduce eye fatigue, meaning that it’s comfortable to work for longer.

The power you demand

It doesn’t matter how good a notebook looks unless it has the performance to match. Behind the stunning visuals and beneath its stunning physical design, the Intel Core Duo processor, huge, 250GB hard disk and the latest NVIDIA® GeForce® Go subsystems ensure that the AR Series also has real power to meet your demands.

Dual core: twice the speed

At the heart of the VAIO AR Series beats Intel’s revolutionary Core Duo processor - a technology that offers users optimum speed, no matter how many applications they’re using.

As the CPU has two cores or processors on a single piece of silicon, it is faster and more efficient at managing multiple tasks. So while one processor dedicates itself to rendering 3-D graphics or editing video footage, the other is free to ensure that you can still listen to your music library, monitor your emails and surf the web at the same time.

But what really makes this chipset revolutionary is the fact that it can deliver dual-core coordinated performance without sacrificing available battery power. Enhanced energy management tools such as SpeedStep technology means that when not connected to an AC outlet, your battery’s life is conserved by lowering the operating voltage of the notebook and slowing down the clock speed and frequency of the dual processor so that it is using the least amount of power possible. It is so sensitive that it can actually save power between keystrokes.

Room for everything

The AR Series comes with 250GB of hard drive space as standard, allowing you to mix business with pleasure. With such a huge capacity you have all the space you need for projects or presentations and still have enough room left for your entire music and photo collection, plus any TV shows you may have recorded via the TV tuner.

But whether you choose to fill your hard drive with photographs, home movies, games or HD video footage, the NVIDIA GeForce Go graphics card makes sure that your images are true to life and that gaming is always sharp and responsive.

High Definition graphics

Designed to take full advantage of dual processor technology and to exploit the superior quality and resolution of the AR Series screen, the NVIDIA® GeForce® Go subsystem excels at 3D imaging and can accurately render even the most subtle of changes to light, shadow or texture.

The result is smooth playback of DVD and HD video and outstanding graphics for playing the latest games. What’s more for the gaming perfectionist, the AR Series is also available with the exceptionally potent GeForce Go 8400 graphics processor, which comes complete with a full 256MB of dedicated video memory for optimum performance.

A first for users

As the first ever notebook to feature an integrated Blu-ray optical drive, the AR Series could be the computer that starts the High Definition revolution.
 

The same size as a CD, but with the capability of holding up to 50GB and encased in blue plastic for extra protection, the Blu-ray disc is also expected to consign DVD recorders to history and revolutionise the way we store everything from our back-up files to our music collections.

While current optical discs such as DVD, use a red laser to read and write data, the AR Series built-in blue-ray drive uses a blue-violet laser instead, hence the name Blu-ray. This blue-violet laser is more accurate and its point can be focused with even greater precision.

This means data can be packed together so tightly that it takes up less space, so it’s possible to fit up to 50GB of data on a disc no bigger than a standard CD or DVD. As such, Blu-ray holds the key to maximising the uses and benefits of High Definition TV and video.

 

The future today

High Definition promises viewers images of a quality never before seen on a television or computer screen. But a higher definition requires the setting of a new standard in storage. And while your favourite standard definition film, no matter how long, will comfortably fit on to a single 4.7 GD DVD, the same movie in HD would struggle to fit onto 6 standard DVDs.

And while in years to come, all movie rentals will come in HD format, thanks to its professional software, plugins and Blu-ray optical drive, AR Series users can start to take advantage of HD straight away. Whether you simply want to back up music, pictures and TV shows to a single Blu-ray disc or import, edit and manipulate HD footage.

All the storage you’ll ever need

Single layer Blu-ray media capable of holding 20GB, and dual layer discs with a 50GB capacity are currently available but Sony and Blu-ray’s other developers are already in the process of creating a multi-layered disc with up to 200GB of storage.

And though even a 200GB disc may only hold 16 hours of HDTV, it would also be capable of backing up the entire contents of the AR Series hard drive. Blu-ray means that you may never run out of storage again.

Growing support

But this doesn’t mean that you have to discard any films or music on old formats and start again. The AR Series Blu-ray drive is backward compatible with CDs and DVDs and can write to and read all existing Blu-ray blank and pre-recorded media.

Blu-ray High Definition movies and games are already available and as the technology is also supported by more than 170 of the world’s leading computer, media and video gaming companies, plus 7 of Hollywood’s 8 major studios, this availability is set to grow very quickly. -    Information Supplied From www.sony.co.uk