Sony VAIO VGN-AR550E 17" Laptop

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T7100, 2 GB RAM, 240 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)
List Price: $2,099.99
Price: $1,499.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details You Save:$600.00 (29%)

Technical Details
Multimedia studio notebook with 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 ("Santa Rosa") processor and 17-inch LCD
Dual 120 GB hard drives (240 GB total), 2 GB installed RAM (4 GB max), dual-layer DVD burner, NTSC/ATSC TV tuners
Three USB 2.0, one, FireWire, one HDMI output, S/PDIF audio output, ExpressCard 54 card slot, Memory Stick & SD readers
Quad-mode Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n), 10/100 Ethernet, Nvidia GeForce 8400M video card with up to 895 MB of shared memory; Bluetooth
Pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium (with Media Center capabilities)

Product Details
Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 16.4 x 1.3 inches ; 8.4 pounds
Shipping Weight: 20.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
Note: Gift-wrapping is not available for this item.
ASIN: B000RLSY8C
Item model number: VGN-AR550E

The Basics

Processor: The Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 processor has a 1.8 GHz processor speed, super-fast 800 MHz front-side bus (FSB), and a extra-large 4 MB L2 cache. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.)
The Intel Core 2 Duo processor has two computational execution cores in a single processor, providing greater system response when running multi-threaded applications simultaneously with no significant increase in power consumption. It's optimized for multitasking and is ready to support the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. It can simultaneously run multiple demanding applications--such as graphics-intensive games or serious number-crunching business productivity applications--while downloading music or running virus-scanning security programs in the background. Some of the advanced Intel innovations of the Core 2 Duo processor include

Smart Memory Access: Improves system performance by hiding memory latency, thus optimizing the use of available computer data bandwidth to provide data to the processor when and where it is needed.
Advanced Digital Media Boost: Effectively doubles the execution speed for instructions used widely in multimedia and graphics applications.
Dynamic Power Coordination: Coordinates Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology and idle power-management state (C-states) transitions independently per core to help save power.
Deeper Sleep with Dynamic Cache Sizing: Saves power by flushing cache data to system memory during periods of inactivity to lower CPU voltage.

Hard Drive: This system offers a total of 240 GB of hard disk drive space from two 120 GB drives (5400 RPM), creating one of the largest capacities you'll currently find in a notebook PC (as of June 2007). These Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives also quicken the pace with a higher speed transfer of data--akin to FireWire and USB 2.0.

Memory: The 2 GB of installed RAM (2 x 1 GB DDR2, PC5300) is an excellent start, but you'll want to add more RAM to handle today's demanding multimedia and productivity suites. It provides two DIMM slots and has a large 4 GB maximum RAM capacity. It also offers a top-of-class 667 MHz speed. To receive the faster data transfer benefits of the dual-channel DDR2 RAM, any RAM additions require memory modules of same capacity and clockspeed.

DVD/CD Drive: The double-layer DVD drive is compatible with a wide range of formats, including both DVD+RW and DVD-RW discs, CD-RW discs, and dual-layer (DL) DVD+/-R discs, which can hold up to 8.5 GB of data--great for backing up your MP3 collection or your most important documents. It features the following speeds: 2.4x for DVD+R DL, 2x for DVD-R DL, 8x for both single layer DVD+R/-R, 4x for both single layer DVD+RW/-RW, 5x for DVD-RAM, and 24x/16x for CD-R/RW. It reads DVD-ROM discs at 8x and CD-ROMs at 24x.

Keyboard & Mouse: This notebook has a standard 86-key keyboard (2.5mm stroke and 19.05mm pitch) and electro-static two-button touchpad.