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I have both a Sony style store and Apple store a mile or so from my home so I know both products pretty well. I was able to sell my Dell combo for $250 which makes this a $550 upgrade.My overall impressions so far: Better than the Dell in every respect. The LV has roughly the same specs as my Dell combo so why did I do the up grade and was it worth it.First the price: I paid around $800 shipped for this. The scaling and picture on the Sony (perhaps due to vista media center) was superior as was the audio.If you're looking for a nice stylish all in one PC this is an excellent choice. The iMac has much better every day software and it does not have the huge amounts of trial software that the Sony comes with. I watched a DVD on both an iMac and the Sony same movie.
I also had another wire to connect a logitech web cam from the monitor to the computer. In my old system I had a wire to connect external Bose Monitor speakers to the PC (The speaker you can attach to the Dell monitor is simply one of the worst out there), and another from the power to an outlet. The Dell did not have the fast n class wifi, so I had another wire to connect a Linksys n class wifi receiver, I also had to connect a usb from my monitor to the PC and of course the DVI cable from the PC to the monitor. Finally I had 2 wires for an external blu ray drive. I recently got this to replace a Dell Vostro 200 Slimline + 22 inch Dell Ultrasharp monitor. In terms of core performance, the multi media capabilities of the Vaio is far superior to the Dell, the graphics card is much better and the fact that the Blu Ray player is integrated into Vista Media Center makes it much nicer.3. The Dell did not have a remote for the media center, the Sony Vaio has a pretty decent remote.When considering the Vaio I also considered the Apple iMac.
But unlike the iMac the Sony monitor is widescreen and the in built multi media capabilities are much better on the Vaio as are the in built speakers. In terms of build quality they are about the same. So I went from 8 wires in my core PC/monitor (not even counting the printer) to 1. A much better multi media system by far.The main benefits:1. Mac OS is an excellent everyday system mainly because it boots up pretty fast.
One for the usb and another for the power. 8 to 1 is a whole lot simpler and cleaner.2. But for multimedia like watching movies, editing photos and using skype and such I find Mac OS to be really slow even with their very high quality hardware. I personally prefer the 22 inch to the 24 inch for my space, although 1080p would have been nice.
Although the computer specs for this system are incredible, I had planned on using it in my kitchen, so the HD TV capability was very important to me. I had planned on connecting the ATSC port directly to my cable provider, but after three hours of struggling along with SONY tech support, the third level support technician discovered in his documentation that the ATSC tuner will work only with a digital anntena, and not with digital cable. He suggested that I use a set-top box, but that's going to clutter my kitchen counter, so that's not a viable solution for me.I'm not a happy camper.
I would like to at a minimum have a hard copy of the operating system software. It is a 5 star unit except for one thing. It is a solid performing unit. I had it running in less than an hour.
The blu ray player/recorder is great and the amount of material you can record to a blu ray disc is amazing. I purchased this machine to upgrade from a 3 1/2 year old Vaio desktop. The computer sets up simply. In my view the only thing Sony could do to improve this machine is to not overload it with crapware a lot of purchasers will probably not want, especially aol. The reason I am giving it a 4 star review is because of all the crapware that comes preloaded on it that most people don't want anyway, the most irritating to me is aol, which to me is the ultimate in crapware and is very hard to remove.
The diagram illustrating the connecting points that comes with the unit is easy to follow. One small issue is that the wireless keyboard does not have indicator lights or a backlight and it is hard to see if the number lock and cap lock is on or off. The screen is bright and clear. I've had zero driver problems and all but two of my old XP programs run just fine on the Vista system. My old unit gave you a choice with aol, use it or don't use it, this one does not.
It comes with no backup software which is typical of Sony but I didn't get any with my old unit either. I was prepared for programming issues when I decide to upgrade to this machine and Vista, but it was minimal. This is my fourth Sony Vaio computer and the best so far.
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