Crave

Sony's Vaio FW270 features a Blu-ray drive and a fair price.

If you're waiting for Blu-ray players to dip below the $99 mark before replacing your DVD player, let us offer an alternate solution: a Blu-ray-equipped laptop.

While Blu-ray drives first appeared on huge laptops with 18.4-inch screens that were capable of displaying 1080p video, we've now seen Blu-ray drives on laptops as small as the 11-inch Sony Vaio TT. With an HDMI port becoming an increasingly popular laptop feature, you're able to easily connect a laptop to an HDTV for HD movie playback. And with Blu-ray player prices dropping, you don't necessarily need to break the bank to bring home a Blu-ray-equipped laptop.

To wit, the Sony Vaio FW270 serves up a 16.4-inch display and modern configuration with its Blu-ray player for a very reasonable $1,299. And some models, like Sony's Vaio TT and AW laptops, feature Blu-ray recordable drives, which let you burn data to high-capacity Blu-ray Discs.

Take a gander at our Blu-ray laptop six-pack for more.

(Credit: Vudu)

Vudu is now offering more than 1,100 movies in high-def, making it No. 1 in on-demand HD. The company says that it blew past the 1,000-title milestone by adding more than 150 HD flicks per week in October, and it's pledging to continue its HD focus in the weeks and months ahead. (The HD selections represent about 11 percent of Vudu's total library of on-demand movies.)

Indeed, a quick examination of competing services seems to bear out Vudu's claim. We counted more than 1,100 HD movies available through Vudu's box (including about 200 that are also offered in Vudu's Blu-rayesque HDX format), compared to 391 on Xbox Live Marketplace, and something south of 700 on Apple iTunes. (Netflix will be kicking off its own HD streaming service later this month with a mere 300 titles.) By comparison, Amazon's Blu-ray inventory--i.e. the total number of Blu-rays available--shows a total of close to 2,000 titles, though that includes TV shows and prerelease discs.

The Vudu BX100 retails for $300, but a limited-time promotion includes a $200 movie credit for those who purchase the unit at Best Buy, lowering the effective cost to just $100. Vudu HD and HDX movie rentals cost $4 to $6 each.

So: is this a big enough HD movie library for you to take the plunge on Vudu? Or are you sticking with Blu-ray?

HP's new HDX18.

If it seems like we're seeing more and more 18-inch laptops recently, that's because we are. Behind the scenes, the catalyst is that the companies that make the glass for laptop and television screens would rather make one style of panel, rather than two (16:9 for TVs and 16:10 for laptops). Hence, systems such as the Acer Aspire 8920 and Sony Vaio AW, with 18-inch 16:9 displays.

HP already makes some of the best multimedia laptops, so we were pleased to see them get into the game as well, with the new HDX18. We've just reviewed this multimedia powerhouse and liked its touch controls; big, bright screen; and credit-card-style remote that fits into the ExpressCard slot. Naturally, it includes a Blu-ray drive, which matches up perfectly with the 1920x1080 display.

Read the full review of the HP HDX18.

Every time we turn around, it seems like a new laptop screen size is vying for our attention. Netbooks have turned us on to 9 and 10-inch displays, and PC makers have been buzzing since CES about new 16 and 18-inch screens. That's because those two new larger sizes are 16:9 aspect ratio displays, which match HDTV screens and work perfectly with HD content, such as Blu-ray movies.

So far, we've only seen 16:9 displays in real life from Acer and Sony (including the just-announced Sony Vaio AW 18-inch laptop), but now HP has just unveiled the HDX16 and HDX18, two systems we had a chance to see and play around with in person last week.

These two new laptops have little in common design-wise with the massive 20-inch original HDX laptop (which hasn't had anything other than internal component upgrades since its introduction). That model is tremendously fun, but impractical. These two new systems are more traditional multimedia systems, designed for the den or dorm room.

Hard disks with 80GB capacity are good only for old people and the terminally decrepit. When used inside central music jukeboxes, that is.

It's a pathetic amount of memory to stick inside something the size of a hi-fi. We've seen them in heaps of music centers from the likes of Sony, Philips, and newcomers Brennan. Always 80GB. Would a 160GB drive break the bank? No. Would 250GB? No. And these larger disks would also mean you could store CDs in lossless format.

(Credit: Crave UK)

How pleased were we to see that at least one company gets it. British manufacturer Naim has put not one but two 400GB drives in its new HDX audiophile music center--one primary disk for use in the day, and one that backs up the primary disk at night. But at 4,500 pounds (about $8,923) you may have to start your own e-mail scam to afford one.

It's not just about storage, of course. The HDX uses a double-pass technique to ensure a bit-for-bit copy of a CD, then stores it in uncompressed WAV format to retain absolute sonic accuracy. Together this will let you store about 600 CDs inside the system. With so much music, it'll need to be easy to navigate--a colour LCD touch-sensitive screen should be just the ticket, or you can hook up a keyboard and monitor for more complex editing.

The HDX can also stream music from any network-attached storage devices or PCs you have lying around, or from USB sticks and iPods. An automatic AMG-powered online system will label your CDs with artist and album info, along with cover art.

For even more passionate audiophiles, Naim's jukebox powerhouse supports DRM-free 24-bit 96KHz and 24-bit 88KHz files for better-than-CD audio reproduction. Music in this format will be available for download from Naim's digital music store later this year. Yes, it will play MP3, WMA, AAC and good ol' FLAC files, should you want to, though we don't yet know whether it'll rip into these formats.

We'll do our best to bring you a slick hands-on report with the HDX in the near future, so watch this space. You can expect to pick up an HDX from June.

(Source: Crave UK)

The HP Pavilion tx2000

(Credit: HP)

HP isn't waiting until the streaming masses descend on Las Vegas for CES to unveil new additions to the company's laptop lineup. Thursday, HP announced the HP Pavilion tx2000 and a slightly revamped version of the HP Pavilion HDX. If those sound familiar, that's because the convertible tablet tx2000 is an update of the tx1000 we first saw last year at CES 2007, and the new HDX has some updated parts, but exactly the same name as the 2007 version of the HDX, itself released just this past July. Overall, there are a handful of minor tweaks, but nothing radically new.

We liked the original tx1000, as it was one of the few consumer-focused tablet PCs we'd ever seen (most tablets are aimed at industrial or medical workers). The new version looks nearly identical from the outside, and inside it offers AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core CPUs, 802.11n Wi-Fi and adds Wacom digitizer support to the finger-sensitive 12.1-inch touch screen, something missing from the previous tx1000 model.

HP's updated 20-inch HDX

(Credit: HP)

We said the massive 20-inch HDX was a laptop in name only when we first saw it, and the same is true of the latest version. Despite some new hardware, HP isn't changing the name, but inside you'll find updated Intel Core 2 Duo processors and Nvidia's GeForce 8800M video card, along with HD DVD or Blu-ray optical drives (no combo drives yet). A previous update added a 1,920x1,200 display, which is an improvement over the original's 1,680x1,050 screen, and the four Altec Lansing speakers plus subwoofer remain the same.

The tx2000 starts at $1,299 and will be available online on January 8 and in retail outlets in March, while the updated HDX starts at $1,999 and should be available later in January.

We'll have more in-depth looks at both of these systems next week during CES.

Maybe it took extra long, 'cause it was so hard to get these giant things on the truck. In any event, the 20-inch HP HDX--a massive multimedia laptop we previewed extensively back in May--comes with some cool new hardware tweaks and is finally ready to hit dorm rooms and CEO offices around the country.

One of the first systems to be announced with Intel's revamped Centrino Duo platform, the HDX won us over with its huge 20-inch display (which moves back and forth on a giant hinged arm), touch-sensitive media control buttons, pop-out remote control, and gamer-worthy specs. The only problem was, after taking a look at a prerelease version of the system, the final product never came out.

Cut to a couple of months later, and the HDX is finally ready for prime time, available for ordering on HP's Web site (with an estimated ship date of August 10). Our preproduction unit from back in May had a top-of-the-line T7700 Core 2 Duo CPU, but you can now order the system with Intel's Core 2 Extreme X7800, the new mobile version of the Core 2 Extreme desktop processor. The HDX starts at $2,999--but add the Core 2 Extreme CPU, 4GB of RAM, and an HD DVD drive, and you're looking at a $5,000 laptop.

Just how big is HP's new Pavilion HDX laptop? If Dan Ackerman's video doesn't give you a sense of scale (who knows, Dan could be 3 feet tall, making the HDX appear much larger than it really is), then perhaps this slide show will help. Let there be no doubt, this is one massive mobile PC. The HDX so big, in fact, we don't know of a laptop bag that could contain it. More details here.

Weighing an amazing 15.5 pounds and sporting a desktop-sized 20-inch LCD, the HP Pavilion HDX is truly a laptop in name only. This semi-portable home theater system has a Media Center remote that docks right next to the full-size keyboard, an HDMI output, and an optional HD DVD drive.

We first got a glimpse of the massive HP Pavilion HDX system back at CES 2007 and have been eagerly waiting for a review unit ever since. Some system highlights include:

An eSATA port for hooking up external backup drives

The HDX meets the specs for Intel's revamped Santa Rosa platform, so it has a Centrino Duo sticker. Our preproduction unit also had a top-of-the-line T7700 Core 2 Duo CPU, 3GB of RAM, and dual 100GB hard drives.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

Taking the HDX for a test drive, we loved the removable remote control and the touch-sensitive capacitive media controls. The trickiest part was the giant hinge connecting the screen to the rest of the system. The hinge is attached to the middle of the lid, allowing you to angle the display slightly. When closing the lid, you have to make sure the rear of the screen is pushed all the way back against the hinge, or it'll hit up against the body of the system and potentially crack something. Opening the screen is equally tricky--if you lift from the top of the lid, as is common with laptops, the bottom of the screen will suddenly swing out when it has enough clearance, whacking against the bottom of the chassis. A little practice had us opening and closing the lid with ease, but those first few times were white-knuckle experiences.

(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)

The HDX probably won't ship until at least July, and it starts at $2,999. Fully loaded, it'll run closer to $4,500. If this oversized design looks slightly familiar, that's because you're probably thinking of the lap-busting Dell M2010, released around this time last year.

Check out the HDX in our First Look video