Review Rather than enter the market quietly and go along with the crowd, Sony likes to make the existing competition look dull and lacklustre. Games consoles and notebooks are two areas where Sony has succeeded in stirring up its rivals, and it has now decided to turn its hand to desktop PCs. Desktop PCs are renowned for being big, boring and beige, so Sony has produced a computer more in keeping with its consumer electronics background.

The unit is considerably smaller than your average PC and very simple to set up, if not as simple as Packard Bell's Aura. The 15in LCD panel hooks up to the main unit via one cable, while the keyboard and mouse plug into either side of the base. There are nice design touches, too, like the keyboard dustcover that folds down in use to form a palmrest. Slightly unusual is the dual-hinged LCD, which allows the screen to fold flat horizontally. Impressive engineering, admittedly, but it's hard to see a practical use for it.

The spec is a competent though uninspiring affair. The 1GHz Pentium III and 128MB of RAM produced a WorldBench result of 154. There's a decent 60GB Maxtor drive, plus a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo. Sony has also thrown together a nice software package, including cut-down versions of four Adobe titles.

Although not excessively priced when you take into account the flat-panel, the PCV-LX1 is still expensive compared to a normal PC. However, if you want the performance of a normal computer, then you have to take all that goes with it - including the beige box. The choice is yours. ®

Info

Price: £1701
Contact: 08705 111 999
Website: www.vaio.sony-europe.com

Specs

• 1GHz Pentium III
• 128MB RAM
• 60GB hard drive
• 15in flat-panel
• DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo
• integrated graphics
• 10/100 network card
• USB modem
• 5 USB ports
• 2 FireWire ports
• Memory Stick slot
  
• PC card slot
  
  

Scoring

Build quality: 9
Features: 8
Performance: 6

This review is taken from the September 2001 issue.

Copyright © 2001, IDG. All rights reserved.