New Sony Vaio AR61ZU and AR61S

Looks like SOny´s about to introduce theese changes to the former Ar51-series!
Technical Sony VAIO AR61ZU:

Processore: Intel Core 2 Duo T8300, 2.4 GHz, 3MB cache L2, FSB 800 MHz
Memoria: 4096 MB DDR2 667MHz
Display: 17-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) X-black double lamp
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, 256MB dedicated
Hard Disk: 500 GB (2 x 250GB) SATA
Optical Drive: Burn Blu-Ray DVD + DL



Technical Sony Vaio AR61S:
Processore: Intel Core 2 Duo T8100, 2.1 GHz, 3MB cache L2, FSB 800 MHz
Memoria: 2096 MB DDR2 667MHz eller 3000 mb (kunde inte riktigt utläsa detta)
Display: 17-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) X-black double lamp
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, 256MB dedicated
Hard Disk: 400 GB (2 x 200GB) SATA (Är inte säker på detta)
Optical Drive: Blu-Ray DVD + DL

I guess the prices will be like the former 51-series models when the came out! Which means that the ZU price will be sky-high and the s-model set at affordable normal price!
If this is true, then there will be a great deal to get the AR61S model!!
Same screen and video card, and the other small diffs are really no big a deal!
0,3GHZ diff in CPU is nothing!
2GB extra memory is easaly cheaply bought!
Who needs to burn Blu-ray?

 

it will be a great choice for game-lovers !! heavy but still strong ...

 

Don´t think this will be a game-lovers choice! It´s not so great to play games with a 8600GT on a 1920x 1200 screen!
But i can see myself getting it too watch movies, edit film and photo.

 

Both laptops include dedicated 512Mb RAM for the graphics chips.
Both include Blu-Ray burning capabilities not just the ZU.
The S only has a screen resolution of 1440x900 not so good for Blu-Ray movies or video/photo editing all of which this laptop was built for. Only ZU inlcudes full 1080p capable resolution at 1920x1200.
Adding an extra 2GB RAM to the S will be easily done but by no means cheap at £250 to do it.

 

I prefer the lower res screen to be honest. I have a 1920x1200 17" Vaio (an ageing A117S) and the screen is very nice but it really strains the eyes after prolonged use. Everything on screen is so tiny. I'm holding out for this AR61S to replace it.

The dedicated 512mb graphics is a nice bonus too, especially for OpenGL apps like Second Life. The 8600M GT is getting on a bit and I'd prefer an 8800M but it'll probably be several months before the next gen graphics becomes mainstream. 8600M will do the job nicely with the lower res screen.

Would be great if there was a 7200rpm HDD option too. But 5400rpm (and two of them which will speed up things further) is certainly better than the 4200rpm drive in my A117S.

 

Interesting how for the AR61S one page says it has 256mb graphics and the other says 512mb graphics.

http://tinyurl.com/ynsldl (search "ar61s")

http://tinyurl.com/22mtum

 

Now wouldn't it be smarter to take a minute and increase font and/or dpi settings?
Personally I've been working with 1920x1200 for many years and won't consider anything than even higher res. Crisp text rendering is awesome - almost like printed paper....
True - modern games running at full 1920x1200 require fastest GPUs but that's not the display panel's fault either.

 

Well thanks for the "smarter" jab but I've found many XP apps just don't care about the DPI setting for most of their UI, given practically every Windows user sticks with 96DPI.

In my case I used Opera with a higher zoom setting for reading the longer web articles (and Firefox for everything else). I increased the font size in my code editors/IDEs and text editor to something comfortable. Used the zoom setting in Word. And so on.

Text does indeed render more crisp on a higher res screen and I really like that aspect. But until Windows and applications become truly resolution independent I'd rather have a lower res screen so I can just get on with stuff instead of having to mess around. I'm still using XP so if you feel Vista has noticeably improved with resolution independence feel free to share your experience. Though I just don't see how this will affect the many apps that ignore DPI settings.

 

is the AR61ZU newer then this one?

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...Id=-1&categoryId=27835&parentCategoryId=16154

 

Seems they're now available, anyone buy the new AR61S ?

 

Yes they're available now. Have been for a day or two. I'm in two minds whether to buy now or to wait and see what Apple do with their new Macbook Pros which are just around the corner.

Sony don't provide Windows XP drivers for their AR range like they do with other laptops but there's a chance Apple will provide XP drivers for their Macbook Pro. I'll use Vista if I'm forced to but use a few apps that I'd need to pay to upgrade purely for Vista support. And vista offers nothing extra to me. It has a better Start menu but then I never use it to find/load apps anyway, and I hate transparency in the UI. Plus I can gradually convert over to the Mac OS which I've been wanting to do for a few years now, and the Macbook Pro offer a 7200rpm option.

The thing I like about the Sony AR laptops though is the keyboard. I was playing with one in the local Dixons store. I rate them much higher than those from Apple (or any other laptop or desktop keyboard for that matter). The keyboard (and screen) was one of the main reasons I bought a Sony A117S a few years ago - another 17" laptop. It's time for an upgrade...

If Sony offered a 7200rpm HDD or finger print reader it would of sealed the deal for me. Their laptops that do offer a fingerprint reader/TPM have other negatives like non-dedicated graphics or 4200rpm harddisk. A current gen graphics card would of completely sealed the deal but those are pretty much reserved for gaming laptops so far. The 8600 GT (and slightly overclocked 8700 GT version) are starting to show their age.

 

How come these 2 models are not liisted on their site???
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs...0551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=16154

 

They're shown on Sony's other websites. Have been for a while.

Eg vaio.sony.co.uk and search "AR61S".