Sony's new VAIO NW is a Blu-ray bargain.
Dell is known for not being able to keep a lid on its new products (just look at the
leaked notebooks from this week for evidence.) However, Sony, on the other hand, does a decent job keeping its new products relatively quiet. So it was quite a surprise when Sony announced its new notebook today called the
VAIO NW.
It starts at $US880 ($AUD1091) for the base model and for only $US80 ($AUD100) more you can get a Blu-ray player in the notebook too. Unfortunately, if Sony Australia stays true to its past pricing decisions, the VAIO NW may well cost double that by the time it officially goes on sale here.
The screen is a 15.5-inch unit using Sony XBRITE-ECO LCD technology with 1366x768 resolution -- not quite full HD, but enough to see the benefit of Blu-Ray movies over standard DVDs. To take full advantage of the integrated optional Blu-ray player the notebook is equipped with an HDMI output so you can plonk it next to your plasma or LCD TV and let it drive the big screen. Three different colors are available for the machine including walnut brown, birch white, and rattan silver.
Sony says that the notebook uses an isolated keyboard design (which looks a lot to us like the MacBook chicklet keyboard) for more accurate typing and has a display off button that allows you to turn the screen off while the computer runs in the background -- a really, really nice feature for using the notebook in conjunction with a TV.
Hardware for the machine includes up to a 2.10Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with Centrino technology (slightly underpowered considering Core 2 Duo for notebooks are available at speeds in excess of 3GHz now), Windows Vista Home Premium, 4GB of RAM, and up to 400GB of HDD space. Graphics are via ATI HD 4570 with 512MB of graphics memory.
Pricing and availability in Australia are unknown at this time, but we'll be looking out for it eagerly -- based on the photos and specs, it looks like a very nice notebook.