August 29,2006

Sony VAIO turns 10 and Core 2 Duo Ready

sony_vaioSony selebrates VAIO’s 10th anniversary and announce Core 2 Duo options to it’s VAIO FE, VAIO AR and VAIO SZ series: one in the 15.4-inch Vaio FE series, three in the 17-inch AR series, and four in the ultraportable 13.3-inch SZ series.

FE series - The VGN-FE770G is currently the cheapest way to get your Merom-on through Sony, though you’re still getting a decent feature set for your $1,350: a 1.83GHz T5600 CPU, 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 RAM, a 120GB, 5,400RPM HDD, and a dual-layer DVD burner- though just a 1,280 x 800 resolution and integrated graphics that eat up 128MB of that RAM.

SZ series - you’re starting out with the $1,950 VGN-SZ320P/B (T5600, 1GB RAM, 120GB HDD, DVD burner, nVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 graphics) and ending up with the $2,550 VGN-SZ370P/C, which jacks the processor up to a 2.0GHz T7200 and the RAM up to 2GB but leaves the rest of the specs untouched.

AR series - starting with the $1,800 VGN-AR230G being your cheapest 17-inch option; here you get that ole T5600, a GeForce Go 7400 card, 1,440 x 900 resolution, 1GB of RAM, 200GB of HDD capacity, and obviously, a DVD burner. If you’re looking to go high end, Sony’s got you covered there too, as the $3,500 VGN-AR290G (pictured) sports a T7200 with 4MB L2 cache, GeForce Go 7600GT graphics, two gigs of RAM, 200GB of storage, a sweet 1,920 x 1,200 WUXGA resolution, and best of all, that multi-format Blu-ray burner that will make you the envy of all your friends and colleagues.

All models are announced through b2b.sony.com site and not yet listed at Sony’s online store.