Looking for a laptop

[goodman]

Looking to buy a new laptop for my wife with blu-ray drive and 1080p display. The product descriptions online are not as clear as they could be. I'm looking at a Sony Vaio FW270J/B, which appears to have a drive that reads blu-ray, but I don't think the display is 1080p. Anybody familiar with the Vaio lineup or have any experience with computers with blu-ray drives?

 

[95prelude]

Looking to buy a new laptop for my wife with blu-ray drive and 1080p display. The product descriptions online are not as clear as they could be. I'm looking at a Sony Vaio FW270J/B, which appears to have a drive that reads blu-ray, but I don't think the display is 1080p. Anybody familiar with the Vaio lineup or have any experience with computers with blu-ray drives?

Only the Sony Vaio AW line display 1080p res. I would avoid Sony because when it breaks it'll cost u an arm and a leg to fix. Sony is so propietory. Take a look at HP's HDX line. The 18.4" one displays 1080p and has a bd drive.

 

[goodman]

Thanks for the information and advice. Because it was cheaper than an HP with BD reader, I ordered the Sony Vaio FW270JB. It has BD ROM, but the display is 1600 x 1900, not 1080p. It was $958.00 off of Pricegrabber.

 

[strube]

True 1080p laptops are few and far between.

Most computer aspect ratios, laptops included, are 16:10 (there are new monitors out that are 16:9, but this is a new thing and most laptops haven't caught on). The resolution required for 1080p is 1920X1200, and you will always have some black bars for 1080p movies, but you will have full 1080p resolution.

You will probably (in most cases) need a 17" laptop screen to get this 1920X1200 resolution.

 

[goodman]

The display is 16.4", claimed to be 16 x 9 aspect ratio, with 1600 x 900 pixels, so no 1080p on the display. I think you can hook the laptop up via HDMI to a 1080p display. Hopefully the laptop, with dual core P8400 CPU, will load about as fast as my PS3.

 

[yettitheman]

Laptops... my advice:
Cheap and small
OR
The most powerful one you can get.

Obviously people will disagree with me... but I've carried one long enough to want the smallest, and cheapest one I can find.
Even HP's new 1000 Mini ( http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Mini&series_name=mini1000xp_series ) is more than enough for me to lug around in my cramped backpack and still run net diagnostics and play movies (if I had one).

If your getting something bigger than that, you might as well have the most powerful one you can find; make it worth breaking your back lugging it around by having a blazing fast laptop.

 

[strube]

I think you can hook the laptop up via HDMI to a 1080p display.

Probably, but that depends entirely on the video card. I would say that is a good assumption if it has an HDMI port to begin with.

Hopefully the laptop, with dual core P8400 CPU, will load about as fast as my PS3.

Doubtful, unfortunately the CPU doesn't govern the load times as much as the communication between the software you use to play the disc and the disc drive itself. That is not to say it will be bad by any means .