Sony is causing a lot of commotion with two big announcements on May 16. In response to Toshibas Qosmio G35-AV650HD-DVD laptop, Sony has introduced its new AR series, equipped with an integrated Blu-ray recordable drive.
In addition, Sony announced the UX Series UMPC, which is reminiscent of the tiny OQO model 01 and will surely be generating plenty of buzz.
The AR series has something the Toshiba Qosmio HD DVD laptop sorely lacks—an HD recordable drive. Able to play back and record BD-R and BD-RE media at 1080p resolution, the AR Series will have a 17-inch XBRITE screen with a native resolution of 1920×1200.
The AR, a big desktop-replacement machine, takes a design departure as well and sports a glossy piano finish plus silver trimmings similar to the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650. The AR Series is loaded with a potent Intel Core Duo T2500 (2GHz) and 2GB of RAM. It includes two 100GB hard drives (200GB total) arranged in a RAID 0 configuration. The laptop will also have an HDMI Output port for displaying HD content on a larger HDCP-compliant display, such as 50-inch plasma or DLP TV. Systems will start shipping at the end of June with a starting price of $3,500.