Sony AR Owners UNITE! - Page 2

What is the bluetooth version on the AR series? It is the Bluetooth 2.0 or the old V1.2?

Also how long the battery last? How long with the regular and how long with the extended version??


Thanks in advanced.

If it's anything like the vgn-a600 series, opening it up is almost impossible without specialized tools. See my thread in this forum on Service Manuals.

Getting to the CPU in the AR Series is a breeze. The a600 is a totally different animal. Remove all screws from the bottom, remove hard drive tray, remove rear fan grill, CPU is right there. A swap would take 30 minutes max going slow and being very careful.

VGN-AR190G (purchased 1/1/2007)

Was looking at the SZ330P/B, but a 13.3"(or smaller) laptop looks like a toy! I also have VGN-A190, so now I have two 17" WUXGA machines!

Why Sony? Because... it's a Sony!

Gotta love 2 100GB HDDs in RAID 0! Programs load fast!
Blu-ray burner is great(too bad blanks are $19.99 on up)
TV tuner built-in.
MCE remote included.
HDMI
S-video input & S-video output connectors
Express card and PC card slot
Built-in camera and microphone
nVidia GeForce Go 7600GT 256MB
Express Upgrade to Vista - meh.

Need to replace the two 512MB with two 1GB SODIMMs to max it out
*NO* manual!
"Manual" is an Acrobat file on HDD(200+ pages worth!)
Had to trash Norton 2006 before it initialized... no need to gum up a new machine

Would I do it again, Sure! Just wish stores had carried the AR290G so I could have purchased that model.
I'm not real good on blowing 3 grand and not taking something other than an order slip home with me, ya know?
I drop 3 Gs, something is coming home with me other than a PIECE OF PAPER!

Gotta go now, off to go get a couple BD DVDs to watch!

No one discusses the sound quality of the speakers, can someone please tell me if it is comparable to the Toshiba with SRS or the Harman Kardon sound from the Qosmio series. I been trying to find this out because I am looking at the AR series as a possible addition/upgrade to the one's in my sig. Thanks!

I have an AR590E. While I love the laptop, I hate the touchpad and the overall design of the laptop. The touchpad keys aren't comfortable to use at all. The laptop also is very bulky.

I also have another 17" model, the A790. I wish the AR had the A790's touchpad and design and it'd have been perfect in all aspects.

well the upgrade to Merom CPU has been done while ago. and you can install Merom cpu like core2duo 2.33ghz thats max according to Sony.. i will plan on doing it as soon as i can get a cpu for a decent price.

Hey guys, was at Best Buy last monthm seen a AR730E/B for $1688.
Just happened I had a couple Gs on me.
BD ROM combo drive, 3GB PC2-5300, 256MB 8400GT, ABGN wireless, Vista Home Premium.

So now I have two AR series VAIOs.
Go Blu-ray!

Okay AR390E here. Great machine here at first. I use it for coding and run multi processes and multi threading can be a real pain in the rump for machines. Then came time for some warranty work. Well the first time 3 weeks into it I needed a hard drive. That went well, they sent the whole caddy with both drives. Then the power plug was loose and they sent a tech to repair that who royally screwed up my computer. Sent it to Sony and it cam back looking new. When I sent it in I had to send the receipt for it and when it came back it did so with no receipt in the box. Then all hell broke loose. the very next time I called them was for a battery and this was the first time they asked for a receipt over the phone. So they had their way to back out of the warranty. Now just under a year the screen is turning 2/3 white and I can't get them to fix it. Not only that but I have two other Sony products they refused to fix under warranty for B.S. reasons. The PS3 receipt was too faded and th e 52" T.V. had nothing wrong with it according to them. It'll be a long cold day in hell before they get another dime out of me. So no I wouldn't do it again. Also the manual close latch for the lid....... what crackhead thought of that? The mouse buttons right on the edge..... another stupid idea. Also the placement of the wireless switch could have been better thought out. The only good thing I have to say about Sony lately is they were dumb enough to put the CellBE processor in their PS3 and I've been having some real learning experiences multi threading for 8 cores. It doesn't even matter that noone is writing games that can use it's potential. Hell the Sony OS only uses one core.