Acer's latest line of Gemstone Blue laptops are interesting for a few reasons, but none more than the inclusion of a Blu-ray player inside a $750 notebook.
The Acer Aspire AS5739G has a combo 8x Blu-ray and DVD drive, with a 15.6-inch screen, stereo speakers and a bass booster. There's also 5.1-channel output for surround sound, according to several reports. Other specs include an Intel Core2 Duo T6500 processor, Nvidia's GeForce GT130M graphics card, 4GB of RAM and a 250 GB hard drive.
At $749.99, the AS5739G undercuts Sony to become the cheapest Blu-ray laptop on the market. Last week, Sony unveiled the VAIO VGN-NW180, which costs $880 and includes a BD-ROM drive and BD-Live. It also has an HDMI output, which Sony is pushing as a way to turn the notebook into a portable Blu-ray player.
It's not clear whether Acer's laptop has HDMI or which Blu-ray profile is being used. High-definition output could be crucial, because the difference between DVD and Blu-ray is negligable on a 15-inch screen. BD-Live isn't quite as important because, well, a PC can do the whole interactive Internet thing on its own.
The Acer Blu-ray laptop ships at the end of June. If Sony's VAIO VGN-NW180 sounds more interesting, it'll ship in a couple of weeks.
