Sony Vaio AR and Vaio RC: Blu-ray laptop and desktop combo

The inexorable, but slow-moving Blu-ray wagon train inched a step closer today, with Sony's announcement of two forthcoming Blu-ray devices -- the Vaio AR series laptop and the Vaio RC204 desktop.

The Vaio AR series uses a 17.8-inch screen with a high native resolution of 1,920x1,200 pixels, which is capable of churning out high-definition content at 1080p. You get an HDMI video output, a TV tuner, and it all runs off a 2GHz Core Duo CPU and a plucky GeForce Go 7600 GT graphics card.

Sony seems to be going all-out with the AR series, as apparently some models will feature dual 200GB hard drives. Don't think about taking them on the road though -- they'll weigh in the region of 3.8Kg, and make you £2,000 worse off when someone mugs you of them.

The Vaio RC204 desktop is aimed at serious video-editing enthusiasts and, like the AR series, will take advantage of the Blu-ray burner's ability to write up to 50GB of data to compatible discs. We haven't got any firm details on the PC's final specification, but it's likely to use a dual-core Pentium D CPU, lots of RAM, have enough storage space to backup the entire contents of the Internet, and probably cost an arm and a leg.

Kinda makes the €599 (£410) PlayStation 3 look like an absolute bargain.

We'll get our hands on both devices very shortly, so check back for more coverage soon. -RR

Update: We now have full reviews of the Sony Vaio VGC-RC204 and the Sony Vaio VGN-AR11S live in our Reviews channel.

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