Sony's 18-inch Blu-ray laptop is our portable home theater favorite

In any collection of similar laptops, the one with the Sony Vaio logo is likely to be the most expensive in the group. So, imagine our pleasant surprise to find the Vaio AW125 to be less expensive than the other 18-inch, Blu-ray equipped laptops we've seen.

Our Blu-ray HP HDX18 was $2,149, while the Blu-ray version of Acer's Aspire 8920 was $2,499 (both have cheaper non-Blu-ray versions). In comparison, the Vaio AW125 was a mere $1,849 (although fancier models from the AW line can get up as high as $3,200).

We're big fans of the 18-inch 16:9 screen concept, which matches the resolution of HDTV screens and works perfectly with HD content. Our only real knocks against the Vaio were its insistence on including the usual assortment of proprietary Sony stuff, from a Memory Stick slot to all kinds of Sony-branded media software (just stick with iTunes or the VLC player).

Read the full review of the Sony Vaio AW125.

[dkknght2]

Lets see they should leave Apples proprietary software on take off the memory stick which I use on allmost all of my products and software which you didnt even try, some of which is awesome and only comes on vaio machines. I think you need to do some more research before you cram your "opinion down everyones throat. Picture motion browser lets you calenderize you photos and has facial recognition. Vaio movie story lets you make videos and burn them via AVCHd to a DVD and playback at 1080i in a blu ray player. Arcsoft webcam software that if you were to purchase would cost you 39 dollars. But they should just take that off cause you dont like it and put on I tunes because you do.

[Pacu102]

I have a new FW non-bluray version and I love it, it has a super big screen (16:9 and I love that) but still not to heavy to take. Also, not to mention the always-present stylish vaio design standard.