Even more new Vaio laptops arriving

The new Sony Vaio NS is a 15-inch laptop.

Hot on the heels of the just-announced 18-inch Vaio AW, Sony is dropping a couple more laptops, just in time for the holiday shopping season (although a little late for back-to-school buyers).

The NS series is a 15-inch laptop and successor to the current NR model. While you'll be able to squeeze in a Blu-ray drive for about $1,000 (think $650-ish without), the screen resolution of 1,200x800 isn't exactly HDTV-level. Intel's new 4500 integrated graphics is what makes the NS Blu-ray ready without a discrete graphics card.

Also coming soon is the Vaio CS series, already available in Japan. This 14-inch laptop has some unusual multimedia features, including a, "12-tone music analyzer that translates your music into a colorful LED light show that plays out beneath the palm rest of the PC," according to Sony's press release. We'll have to wait until we get our hands on one of these to see what that actually means in real-world terms.

The CS model will start at about $920, with Blu-ray available for around $1,070. We're skeptical enough about Blu-ray in a 15-inch laptop--adding it to a 14-inch model seems even more of a stretch, unless you plan on outputting the signal to a big-screen TV.

Both are listed as "coming soon" from Sony, but should be available sometime this fall.

[xZero2007x]

Believe it or not, the difference of playing back HD content, especially blu-ray, on a laptop screen exists. Given it's not a huge difference, but it is a modest one at most. Because of that, if the blu-ray option isn't that expensive, I would definitely consider it for a laptop. The only thing that worries me is the battery life and where the drives are in its market lifespan (still too early, etc).

But wow. An 18-incher is HUGE. I think that's for their 16:9 aspect ratio laptop lineup, and would be a beauty to behold, but SHEESH.

[rccoffee]

Sony has a real problem with quality! My Sony Vaio desktop just fell apart piece-by-piece. Technical Support was in India where they speak Greek and now is in The Philippines.

C/Net never talks about quality or tech support. Too bad. It makes a real difference.

[H.S.Prabhakara]

I think a lot of these people who complain about tech support from abroad are probably racists who cannot stand the fact that some people who are not lily white are better than them in tech area! Some of the best tech support I had was from overseas people from India and Philippines etc and some of the worst techs were from USA .Wake up guys and realize that America may not be the biggest dog on the street in near future!

[whiplash55]

Blu-Ray won't matter until the media itself becomes reasonable, and the computers have burners in them. When I can do large backups easily and store them in various locations blu-ray is no that big a deal.