New Vaio laptop over-eggs HD pudding?

The Sony Vaio AW-Series
The Sony Vaio AW-Series

Sony has unveiled a new range of laptops that it hopes will show the world just how useful HD content and editing can be.

A Vaio AW-series has a huge 18.4in display with full HD capability (1920 x 1080), backlit by a series of RGB LEDs, which can display 117 per cent of the NSTC standard (basically, very rich colours and lots of dynamic contrast).

This backlighting method is the same seen on high-end Bravia TVs, so Sony is clearly packing it into this laptop. With a Blu-Ray disc drive as well, this is a TV designed for content as well as performance, with a built in subwoofer for proper Dolby 2.1 surround sound. Ooh.

Blu-Ray bother

It also features an HDMI-out port in case you can't afford/ be bothered to buy a standalone Blu-Ray player.


The specs are rather natty too, with a world's first 128GB SSD working in RAID array with a 500GB HDD, so large files can be easily read/written.

There's also an Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 processor, and power 3D graphics from NVIDIA's 512MB GeForce 9600M GT, to complement the new disk set-up.

And for those multi-monitor users, Sony has also released the VGP-UPR1 docking station, allowing users to connect extra screens through USB 2.0.

Display link multi-monitor tech is used on the dock for easy window movement, and it features the usual host of connectivity, including Ethernet and four extra USB ports.

No word on the (likely high) price of the AW-series, but the dock costs £100, and can support Windows versions from 2000 all the way to 64-bit Vista,

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.