Sony Vaio Desktops

LiamD

Hey guys

I'm looking into getting a new family PC for use at home. It will be used mainly for web browsing, media, MS office and related products and a bit of gaming. Typical family PC really. Critical thing is it needs to be wireless and if possible I'd like to use it to set up a sharing network with all the laptops in the house if possible.

I've been looking around and these two machines look like they fit the bill:

Sony Vaio JS - roughly €1089
Sony Vaio LN - Roughly €1229

Does anyone have any thoughts on these machines? Good, bad, overpriced?

Also, I know Sony are great at home entertainment systems but what is their reputation like with desktops?

Venom

The specs for the price you listed seem very overpriced, rather outdated and and pretty bad value for money tbh with zero future proofing. Iv always found with Sony products you really are only paying for the name. Hell even Dell are better value than Sony in the PC market.

LiamD

Thanks for the feedback venom. Would you be able to expand a bit on what you mean by out of date and not future proof? Would you be able to suggest some more current technology I could be looking for?

I know Sony is an expensive brand but for similar specs a dell costs about 950. The benefit of the Sony is no tower, better screen, much higher media capabilities and enjoyment factor. Plus it is small, neat and looks really good.

For my last PC I got a custom build from a friend of my sister who did it as a business on the side and had nothing but trouble with it so I’d be very reluctant to go there again. I don’t know enough about what hardware is compatible with what inside a CPU to build my own.

Venom

Well LiamD I would always suggest going for a self build pc first as it works out better value for money overall and you get a much better pc in the long run. Would you be able to build you own pc? You mention a custom build and hassle with it but depending on circumstances involved dont let one bad egg turn you off.

You mention Dell and a tower case being an issue. Any reason for this as the Sony laptop/monitor gig going on with those Vaio's may look nice and sweet but in the long run they are just a pain in the ass imho. Towers are hugly popular for a good reason

Having a cool looking PC is always a bonus but better a ugly box with uber parts than a cool looking case with crap parts. check out the various case companies like Coolermaster, Thermaltake and Antec etc to see if they have something you like.

As for my out of date remarks for the sort of money you were looking to spend on that desktop I would expect at least an i7 chip (or AMD version) a current generation gfx card such as nvidia 260+ (or ATI ), bigger hard drives and decent amount of ram. Have a look in the comp building forum for more info

drunken_munky52

Sony have always been known for media focussed hardware, and their media VAIOs are the best pre-built systems on the market.

Dell are known for mass producing cheap ungrasping computers and self build computers are for competent nerds. LiamD just wants a machine for the family, not rocket science.

Have you considered the VGC-TP series at all? Also if your interested in a desktop which is also a notebook, then check out the VGN-AW series. All the features of a media desktop, massive brighht vivid LCD thats easy on the eyes and super fast perfromance.

LiamD

Thanks for the responses guys. I checked out the i7 chip and graphics card and they look great, but they're more than we need really. I'm really not willing to go down the custom route because I'm the one in the house who will end up maintaining it and getting it in the neck whenever anything goes wrong. Also, as DM52 said I'm not competent enough to build my computer. I'm great at using them once they get here, but building them isn't really my forte. Plus with Sony if anything goes wrong I can bring it back under guarantee and get help, which I can't do with a custom build.

The VGC-TP looks good but I need a screen also so I think that might put it beyond my budget. Same with the VGN-AW, just beyond budget. I think I'm going to try and persuade the rents to go for the LN series.

drunken_munky52

From what I gather, Windows 7 is due to be released in October. I think Sony are offering an upgrade to this with Vista machines bought now. Windows 7 is going to be way better than Vista, its basically MS learning from their mistakes as usual and improving.

If I were you, Id wait for this to be fully advertised and also go down the 64 bit route. 64 bit are going to be the new standard after Windows 7 comes out. Alot of new Sony PCs are begining to come with 4GB of RAM as standard and up to 8GB is possible and will be the norm shortly. Some Sony PCS also come with 64 bit at the moment.

For full specs on the VGC-LN series, visis VAIO-Link on

http://support.vaio.sony.co.uk/specifications/specifications.asp?site=voe_en_GB_cons&c=1&s=VGC-LN&m=4558

marco_polo

Best system around eh? Granted it looks pretty but 1200 seems extraordinarily high for a PC with an E7400 CPU and what is essentially a very average laptop graphics card the GeForce 9330M GS inside. Even a 600 Euro Dell laptop would have a far superior Mobile GPU inside at least something like a Mobility HD 3600. A very modest desktop graphics cards worth only 20-30 euros would absolutely cream it in 3D benchmarks.

See the numbers for the 9300M GS which is in the Sony here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

Even a desktop HD 4350 which cost about 25 Euro has a signifigantly higher score than it and is about 100 places higher in the overall rankings.


And here it is too languishing well outside the top 100 of mobile only GPUs in 110th place :eek:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

Half the price would still be steep IMO.