Sharp will later this month put on sale two multimedia notebook PCs with screens as bright the company's LCD TVs, claiming that they?re the brightest in the industry for notebook PCs.

The PC-XG70H and the PC-XG50H will go on sale in Japan on January 28 and 22 respectively. They have 15- inch TFT-LCDs with a brightness of 630 candela per square meter, well above industry standard for notebook PCs, and approaching the brightness levels of the company's LCD TVs, said Minoru Taniguchi, group deputy manager of Sharp's information and communications systems group.

The screens have a resolution of 1,024-x-768 pixels. Both models have built-in analogue TV tuners and come with remote controls that enable the models to link to the Internet and other devices such as DVD players. The PC-XG70H comes with a 160GB hard-disk drive, and the PC-XG50H with an 80GB disk.

The notebook PCs are positioned as top-of-the range models that are designed to be used as TVs as much as PCs, Taniguchi said.

Last year, the company said it wanted to incorporate more of the LCD technologies used in its Acquos brand of LCD TVs into PC monitors to make consumers comfortable watching TV on their PCs. Generally speaking, PC and notebook PC screens have lacked the brightness of the screens used for TVs.

Last December, the company started selling the PC-TX26GS and PC-TX26G PCs with 26-inch widescreen TFT LCDs that have a resolution of 1,366-x-768 pixels, but those screens have a brightness of 500 candela per square meter.

The company's best-selling LCD TV in Japan is its 37-inch LC-37GD4, which has a brightness of 450 candela per square meter, according to Miyuki Nakayama, a company spokeswoman. The company does not disclose the brightness specifications of its other notebook PC screens, she said.

From DIGIT