Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-AR290G 17" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7200, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Hard Drive, Blu-Ray Disc Drive)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I received my AR290G last night. I was delighted to see that Sony included the movie "Stealth" starring one of my favorite actresses Jessica Biel, and a blank rewritable Blu-Ray disk. I have a Sony SXRD HDTV panel, and after connecting the panel to the Vaio via the HDMI port and selecting external monitor I am happy to say that the Blu-Ray movie played just fine at 1080 on my HDTV.

The Nvidia 7600GT graphics chip is advertised as HDCP HDMI compatible and if you dig enough you find that it also has the encryption chip

installed.

So the review on this site saying that the AR290G does not play Blu-Ray movie titles is either out of date, or just inaccurate. I did notice that when configuring the Vaio video out, the external monitor is labeled as "Sony HDTV" so maybe there is something unique that requires a Sony HDCP HDMI compatible HDTV, but I doubt it. Or maybe the video player or the Blu-Ray drive on the VAIO has been updated, but I can tell you from personal experience that the AR290G plays Blu-Ray movie titles on my Sony HDTV.

The VGN-AR290G is the top of Sony's line of media-oriented notebook computers complete with a Blu-Ray DVD recorder/player. It is beautifully finished and would be a great unit if it worked as expected. Unfortunately, it has a fatal, undocumented flaw. The vaunted Blu-Ray DVD player will absolutely not function if the computer is attached to a remote monitor/tv/projector. So despite the HDMI connectivity and the Sony's "Full HD 1080" resolution, you cannot play Blu-Ray discs through your HDTV. The only way you can watch Blu-Ray discs is on the unit's internal--though admittedly beautiful--17" screen. Nothing in the Sony's description or even the user's manual mentions this major problem. I had to find out by calling Sony's technical support. And this was all so hard to believe that I called back the next day to make sure I had received the correct info. I had.

So if you plan to use this computer to play Blu-Ray DVD on your big screen TV, forget it. Buy something else.

Hardware- 5 stars, Sony Product support- 1 star (zero was unavailable)

I've had this notebook for several weeks now. It's a beautifully finished product. The focus of my note here is intended to inform potential buyers to be wary of the Express Upgrade option for Vista Home Premium which is noted on these (and other) product pages. This is NOT a warning against Vista, however. I have upgraded my 290G to Vista, which runs perfectly in itself, using Sony's kit. Please note though that Sony's product support stretches the limits of that definition. The model support pages for this notebook are full of driver and software updates for the Vista upgrade, but several of them simply do not function and one of them actually applies an incompatible device driver which leads to countless warnings by the OS at each startup. These are documented issues which are being "researched"; in the meantime several hardware features are unavailable due to the poor driver support (ie: integrated camera). The biggest black mark is the fact that the oem windvd BD software update fails to install after the Vista upgrade, leading to an inability to play blu-ray discs (burning and file access on BD-roms functions).

It is not my intention to warn buyers away from this unit, but to raise awareness of the "Vista Ready" label applied to this notebook. The hardware certainly is ready, but Sony's oem upgrade packages are not yet up to par. Certainly these issues will eventually be resolved, but owners may want to plan on waiting until Sony gets its act together on its software updates. That, or wait until this unit ships with Vista installed. Once you've migrated, inquiries to esupport will likely result in the following types of exchange (I've got quite the collection now, someday they'll actually be funny):

"I have downloaded and am attempting to install the BD playback update and am receiving an error message concerning the machine not being a qualified product, after which the install fails."

-Sony reply: "We recommend that you download and install the BD playback update found at the Sony model support site...."

This is a great desktop replacement. I won't elaborate on the computer specs since they speak for themselves. The screen is huge at 17" with very fine display resolution. Sony claims that this is full HD quality (1080p) and I wonder if they referred to the screen display or just the HDMI output. The speakers sound great but the audio output should be louder, unless I'm going deaf already.

This model comes with a Blu-Ray recordable drive which is supposed to output at full 1080p resolution through the HDMI output connector. Quite honestly, I can't tell the difference between a Blu-Ray movie (one is provided gratis as part of the laptop package) and a regular DVD movie. I don't know if it's because the screen is only at 17". They both looked awesome on the display. Sony also provides a recordable Blu-Ray disc and software to play and record. I have yet to find 25 GB worth of data that I want to burn into this Blu-Ray disc permanently.

My main complaint is power management and consumption. This sucker is HOT and I suppose that's legitimate with all the industrial strength stuff in it. Do not leave it on your lap while working for extended period of time. It runs HOT like a furnace as the fans try to cool the machine.

This leads to the 2nd part of power management - battery life. I can't get more than 2 1/2 hours of battery time with all the bells and whistles running even when battery is fully charged. Sony has a battery with 50% longer life for another $400. But shouldn't it come with the laptop if they're going to charge $3000 already?? Why cheap out on the battery?

The last noteworthy item is its 8 1/2 lb weight. I did say it's a desktop replacement so it's not light to lug around. And I expected it. But if you're in the market for a very powerful computer (with free built-in furnace), this will fit the BILL. Once they fix my other complaints, I will upgrade it to 5 stars.

I wanted to confirm Blu-Ray / HDTV compatibility prior to purchase. I contacted Sony support and following is an abbreviated version of our discussion:

Problem: I just want to confirm that I will be able to connect the PC with the Blu-Ray drive to an HDTV monitor via the HDMI connection. One review I read indicated this is not possible. Please advise. Thank you.

(Then they asked me what ports were on the computer because they didn't have the specifications. Very annoying, but I sent them the information I found online)

1 HDMI output (for connecting to a compatible HDTV or home theater receiver for uncompressed digital audio and video. You even get an HDMI cable for easy, 1-cable hookup to your HDTV or A/V Receiver.

Shears_>

If both the devices have HDMI port, you may use a HDMI cable.

G>

That's what I thought. What if the HDTV does not have an HDMI port?

Shears_>

If the HDTV doesn't have HDMI port, it may have DVI port.

(I don't think the PC has a DVI port, but I let them keep going; I can always buy an HDTV with the HDMI port if the Blu-Ray format survives; remember BetaMax?)

Shears_>

If the Monitor has DVI port, connect it to the DVI port of the Computer.

G>

So there is no way that I should not be able to use the Blu-Ray player with an HDTV monitor - correct?

Shears_>

If the compatible ports are available, you may use it.

I hope this helps with your purchasing decision. I saw a Sony Vaio VGN-AR290G in person at Micro Center. I thought visually it is pretty good (although I read that a Toshiba Qosmio® G35 with a dual lamp system is brighter), but the audio lacks refinement. My 4 YO Toshiba Satellite 5205-S704 with a built-in sub-woofer blows the doors off of it. If you plan to watch movies on this PC anywhere other than on an airplane, you'll want to consider external speakers. Thanks.

If you buy the AR series, try to shy away from the dual-disk configuration. The RAID drive controller is extremely fragile. After only three months, I started getting a warning on the screen: "Read/Write to a hard disk failed. Hard disk is failing. Please back up all data immediately."

Unfortunately, due to Vista's well-documented feature that shuts down data transfers over a couple of gigs, it is not possible to extract multimedia files from this computer. Sony sent their techs twice to do an in-house repair job, and both times, it was a complete disaster. It seems easy - snap out the old disks and snap in the new - but in reality, it is NOT. The computer refused to reformat the disks, and the clueless tech they sent out tied up my phone lines for over an hour calling his tech support to try to figure out what to do. The second attempt to repair was even worse - this time they tried to replace the hard drives AND the system memory. Still a no go.

As of this writing, this $2800 paperweight is back at Sony, allegedly being repaired. I am not sure I want it back at this point - it is more of a distraction than anything else. And this is not even to start to go into the way that Vista and the DRM that Sony has crammed onto all their hardware prevent you from ever actually working with multimedia files in a real-world situation. I had hoped to be able to do HD editing in the field with this machine. Guess again.

Next time: buy a Mac.

So it's been about 3 years since I purchased this laptop. I would consider it lightly used since it rarely moves from my desk. I would guess in the 3 year of ownership it's traveled about 50 days in total.

The main reason I got this particular machine over a Mac is I already owned a ton of software and didn't want to dish out another 2-3k for Mac licenses. Lesson learned.

Here are my problems with this laptop and Sony in general.

1. Poor construction. USB ports loose and poorly placed. How about putting a few more in the back instead of just one!

2. Poor Design. See above about USB. Also, the power supply has a right hand bend so if your power happens to be on the right, then you can't use that USB port that is right next to it. I got a stand to avoid this issue.

3. Motherboard failed

4. No longer charges the battery (motherboard again but now I am out of warranty)

5. TV tuner is only analog - Should have had an ASTC tuner knowing that the digital transition was eminent.

6. Vista driver support was iffy

7. Win7 driver support is non-existent

8. Can't use off the shelf nVidia Drivers. I have to wait for Sony.

9. Didn't come with backup OS dvd. Come on, if you pay 3k for a laptop it better come with a DVD.

10. Lots of dead pixels. Yeah it's 3 years old.

It's almost time for a new laptop and this time, I am going with Mac. So long Sony.