Sony recently announced the debut of the new VAIO FZ-Series which aims to bring the high end technology in the hands of regular users.

VAIO FZ uses the Centrino platform and can be configured with up to 2GB of system RAM. It also includes Sony’s proprietary X-Black LCD screen (with wide colour gamut by ‘BRAVIA’ backlight technologies) which is completed by the integrated Blu Ray drive, for HD content.

According to Sony, the X-black LCD screen has been one of the most appreciated features of VAIO FZ in pre-launch customer surveys, so Sony made sure that the screen stands in that respect.

The Japanese electronics behemoth also made sure that VAIO FZ keeps the slim lines and light contour of its predecessors, to ensure maximum portability.

“This is a key part of the notebook’s appeal,” says Jun Koyama, Marketing Director for VAIO of Europe (VOE). “It’s like a 15.4-inch display on a 14.1-inch form factor. You get a nice surprise when you open it up and see the size of the screen, not to mention the quality. And let’s not forget this is a portable capable of playing and editing Full HD content with ease. There’s a great deal of power in a fairly small space.”

FZ’s powerful graphics capabilities are backed by an NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GT notebook graphics processing unit (GPU), which features hardware HD decoding capable of very high bit rate playback for optimum results with HD movies.

An HDMI output with HDCP completes the HD functionality, providing the crucial single-cable connection to an HD-Ready TV.

The Blu Ray optical drive can also write HD content on Blu Ray discs, while VAIO FZ’s high end hardware allows for both editing Full HD video, and playing the results in 1080p Full HD.

When it comes to the core specification a wide range of configurations makes it easy to select the model most suited to your needs. Processor choices include the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processors T7100 and T7300, 1GB or 2GB SDRAM is supplied depending on the model, and hard disk sizes go up to a massive 200GB.