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The VGX died last week and Sony's website says it's out of warranty. This is the third Sony PC I've bought and it'll probably be my last. I bought mine less than a year ago - while it was working it was a decent machine - it played Halo 2 no problems, however, it took longer to start up than my Acer L310 which is older and has a less powerful CPU. Less than 1 year.
Overall I give this product a 4 of 5. The only think that I dislike is the signal strength of the VHF UHF antenna. So I started using this product the same day I received it in the mail. I like all of the versatility and I now run all of my devices through the PC. It is very difficult to pull in any channel let alone trying to pull in all my locals at once.
I am not sure if the issue was my monitor (Pioneer Elite 60 inch plasma - FD 150). Once I got the hdmi working there was no sound. It gets a Windows experience index of 5.0 which is very good. I also installed WinDVD9 that plays back both Blu Ray and HD DVD, but mainly because it also upscales regular DVD better than the included Vaio WinDVD Blu Ray software that is installed.Let me tell you that the quality of DVD and Blu Ray is simply fantastic. It looks great, it feels very well made, the components are high quality and everyone who has seen it comments on how nice it looks. While I was impressed with the picture quality (better than my standalone DVD player), the audio is also excellent from the built in driver.The overall performance of the system is excellent as well. For me, 2GB works fine.The hard drive and the disk drives are very silent and unlike many other similar products that I have seen, it runs pretty cool as well.Both the included remote and wireless keyboard (which I am not using as my primary keyboard) are well made and responsive.
This is a very well executed product. I also decided not to connect the TV receiver since I have an HD DVR/Receiver and instead used the available usb port in the back to connect an xbox 360 HD DVD drive.I did for a couple of reasons. In fact I can use it as the single source of all my content if I want. But I really like how well it performs.I also installed OneCare which let me configure my printers wireless and the included Vaio Media software synchronized all my pictures, movies and music from my other computers easily. First, with 2 drives I can use one drive to play US DVDs/Blu Ray and the other to play foreign DVDs/HD DVD. I had to connect it via VGA (which did not come in the box) and once there I had to enable the hdmi output by going into the graphics card settings. Again, I had to go into the control panel and configure it to send audio via the hdmi output.However, once the set up was complete - all I had was a single hdmi cable out of the Vaio and into my display, and the power cable.
While HD DVD is a dead format, there are some great deals to be had and the movies look as good as Blu Ray. The weak point is the 2GB RAM. In fact that was one thing that worked without much fuss :)In a nutshell, it can take a few minutes to set this all up (took me about an hour or so), but once you have it done it is an excellent product. The instructions on installation are very sparce and I can see how someone not familiar with installing a PC can run into problems getting this to work in a home theatre.Example: Simply connecting the supplied hdmi cable to an hdmi input of my monitor produced no image or sound at first. I also decided to to substitute the Vaio wireless keyboard (which incidently if you don't read the manual that comes with it, you won't be able to connect either) with a Logitech DiNovo Mini (which I already had). You can upgrade it to 4GB if you like.
The form factor & design is elegant yet classy while the performance is scorching. Like I mentioned earlier, I added memory to max out 4GB plus the addition of a 1TB Firewire ext HD is electronic media bliss. The 802.11g is fast enough for streaming media seamlessly and downloading is pretty zippy too. At long last, after 3-4 years of searching, I finally found the digital equivalent of nirvana (the state of mind, not the grunge band). Blu-Ray discs a 1080i look great on my Niko 32" OTP-3211W conneccted by HDMI-DVI cable.
The most recent failure was a brand new Dell Studio Hybrid. The Sony Vaio VXG-TP20E/B is worth every penny.FYI: I paid $1149 on eBay brand new. The Core 2 Duo processor runs 2.1GHz with 4GB RAM and a 500GB HD spinning @ 7200rpm. The sound from the VGX-TP20E/B via TOSLINK into my Logitech Z5450 5.1ch surround is fine for my ears. I owned an HP Z558 that failed miserably as well as an Apple TV that sucked too.
For the record, I put 4GB of memory into this PC before I even plugged it in, all my previous experience told me this was needed. The wireless keyboard has a slight learning curve but it's the best of the genre.
However, the VHF/UHF input port supports only analog signals, so you can't say good-bye to your set-top box.Another thing, it does not include recovery discs for the operating system or device drivers. The application gives you the option to use a DL DVD or 2 single-layer DVD's.
It's not a problem with just the recovery discs application, there's no way to use DL DVD's which is terrible if you want to back up your HD recordings. However, it's located on the back of the unit in a position that makes it impossible to place the lock and connect the pc to a monitor at the same time, making it useless.One other thing, just so you know, the wireles LAN antenna is screwed in counterclockwise, unlike every other connector on the pc (or any other connector in the world, for that matter).I hope you find this review helpful, I don't regret the purchase, I do like this pc.
Trust me, DL is not supported, at least not by the recovery application.Also, it does include a slot for a security cable lock, a must-have in laptops and very nice to have on a small desktop like this one. But I think it's important to let everyone know of these details before they go ahead and get it.** UPDATE **Good news, if you have the Media Center TV pack 2008 update it will recognize QAM tuners (like HDhomerun) and it works like a charm, so you can get your unencrypted digital cable channels including HD.Bad news, despite what the specs say it does NOT support dual layer DVD's.
Ok, I loved the design/form factor of this PC, among other things but you can see that on the pictures and the product specs so I'll focus on the things you CAN'T tell from the product description.The included external tuner and antenna is in fact ATSC and NTSC, which means it supports digital and analog signals over the air. Instead there's a VAIO application that creates those discs BUT it does not support Dual Layer (DL) DVD's.
a lot.
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