Blu-ray laptop six-pack

Matthew Elliott, Section Editor April 6, 2009

If you're waiting for Blu-ray players to dip below the $99 mark before replacing your DVD player, let us offer an alternate solution: a Blu-ray-equipped laptop. While Blu-ray drives first appeared on huge laptops with 18.4-inch screens that were capable of displaying 1080p video, we've now seen Blu-ray drives on laptops as small as the 11-inch Sony Vaio TT. With an HDMI port becoming an increasingly popular laptop feature, you're able to easily connect a laptop to an HDTV for HD movie playback. And with Blu-ray player prices dropping, you don't necessarily need to break the bank to bring home a Blu-ray-equipped laptop. To wit, the Sony Vaio FW270 serves up a 16.4-inch display and modern configuration with its Blu-ray player for a very reasonable $1,299.

Below are six Blu-ray models we've reviewed in recent months, from the first Blu-ray laptop, Acer's Aspire 8920-6671, that we reviewed in May and two other 18.4-inch desktop replacements to Sony's tiny but tony Vaio TT, with a 17- and a 16-inch laptop in between.

Lastly, please note that the Sony Vaio TT and AW laptops feature Blu-ray recordable drives, which let you burn data to high-capacity Blu-ray Discs; the other four laptops here feature optical drives that can read Blu-ray Discs while having the ability to write to DVD and CD formats.