Sony’s Vaio VGN-AR11S is the first laptop to use an integrated Blu-ray drive. It’s also the first laptop we’ve seen that uses a 1080i-capable display with HDCP decoding capability, giving it full high-definition readiness.
The lid of the laptop is finished in a glossy black colour, though the rest of the unit, including the hinges, is matte black. Although it looks fine for the US market, UK consumers might not like the generous use of chrome around the laptop’s outside edge.
To open the lid you’ll need to slide a single switch at the front lip of the unit. This worked fine during our test period but felt flimsy to the touch. The bezel of the screen has a glossy finish but this can be forgiven as the screen itself is coated in Sony’s glossy X-Black varnish — intended to help improve the appearance of colours and heighten contrast. The lower section of the bezel has a backlit Vaio logo and a pair of speakers, one on either side. At the top of the screen there’s a ‘motion-eye’ webcam, but don’t be confused by the name — it won’t track your movement around the room like the Creative Live Cam Voice does.
The keyboard half of the Vaio VGN-AR11S is nice to look at. We did, however, take issue with the oversize keys — they take some getting used to and we found ourselves making regular errors.
There’s no dedicated numerical keypad, but Sony has installed eight hotkeys to the top right of the keyboard to aid manipulation of the laptop’s various multimedia modes. There are buttons for changing the TV (it has an integrated TV tuner which we’ll discuss in more depth later), recording television broadcasts, playback controls and for switching the AV mode. A set of standard shortcut hotkeys are located to the left of the keyboard. These let you adjust the system volume, launch two user-definable applications and eject the Blu-ray drive tray.
One major concern was the position of the mouse buttons. The touchpad is logically placed in the centre of the wrist rest but the buttons sit some distance away on the very edge of the front. This means you’ll need to stretch your thumb an unnecessarily long distance to reach the left or right mouse buttons, which isn’t exactly ideal.
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