Viao, a viable alternative
Written: Oct 02 '01
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Pros: sleek appearance, nice design, good power
Cons: a little pricey, difficult to upgrade, No Game/Midi port
The Bottom Line: The software bundled with it, as well as the features make this a good "Starter" PC.
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| wwolf02's Full Review: Sony VAIO PCV-RX460 PC Desktop |
First things first..
I was working along with (ok, playing games on) my Aptiva 350Mhz monster, when suddenly, the video went a little crazy, then disappeared. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but I thought the old thing needed a break (it was quite tempermental in its old age, when I bought it, it was a 200mhz speed-demon (end sarcasm here)
Anyway, after about an hour or so, I tried to start it up again, and still no video, and it looked like the power was trying to come on, but nothing was happening at all. Upon inspection, I noticed that the cooling fan wasn't turning AT ALL, and the already dodgy power supply had finally went off to a better place. So, after getting a little ticked off at the upgrade/fix me prices, I headed off to Best Buy to score a new computer.
That's it, that's the one!
I looked at a few different computers from HP, Compaq, etc, but the one that caught my eye was the Sony VAIO. It has a good size tower, and looks different from the rest, and, in my opinion, just looked COOL.
Ok, looks get you in the door, but it's what's inside that keeps you there. This particular one has a 1Ghz Athalon Processor mounted on a Thunderbird MoBo, 128Megs of RAM, a pretty average video card, and the usual stuff (keyboard, speakers, mouse, etc)
I had said before that I didn't want to go with another proprietary system, but the features really made the sale for me. It's got an on-board ethernet adapter for LAN/DSL use (I use DSL, so this was a big feature for me) and a 16x DVD drive, along with a 12x8x32 Cd-RW, 40Gig hard drive (partitioned at 2x20G) USB/Firewire ports up front and in back, and a floppy drive housed behind a little door.
Great, but how does it work?
Ok, I bought it, brought it here, set it up (Very easy to set up and run, btw, but I know a little about setting up a P.C.)
The documentation is pretty sketchy, and I would almost go so far as to call it "minimal" but I guess it gets the job done (I'm a man, I very rarely read the books, but the ones that came with it are pretty thin) so I was off n running in about 10 minutes of setting it up. Windows ME was included, but that's sort of a sore spot for me (I'd be just as happy with Win98SE)
That's a big hard drive, so what's on it?
The bundled software that comes with this thing is pretty impressive, especially if you're into picures, music and video...
It's got Real Producer and Real Player, Photoshop Elements, Netscape 6, Norton Antivirus, Tomb Raider Chronicles, Quicken, and others. It's a great startup if it's a first PC. Of course, it wasn't, so I put some of my cards in there (Don't laugh at these, I know they're old, but they're also so cool!) I popped in my old 3DFX Monster Voodoo II and installed the drivers, which was/is readily available, my 10 Gig hard drive (to pull some of my stuff from, and now it's just kinda, well, there...) as well as a video capture card (I *THINK* it's an SIS.. but don't hold me to it) and my webcam. That was about all I could get out of the old computer (at least all that was relevant)
At any rate, it all fit well (I took out the 56k modem to make room, though.. It could use another slot or two)
but, overall, it was pretty easy experience to pop in some new old cards. The one thing that really got to me was the fact that there's no Game controller/Midi port on the back of it... so my Steering wheel is collecting dust, right next to my Thunderpad :(
The final word
It's a pretty fair system to set up and use, and it should be easy for most people just getting into computing. If you've been involved with computers for awhile, the pop-up "reminders" can get VERY annoying (I really DON'T need to set up my internet account, it's already done, really, it is, and I don't need a tour of Windows, I started with Win95a, and went through 3x/95/98/ME/2000/and XPbeta so I don't need to learn how to click on an icon)
There's better out there, to be sure, but there's ALOT worse for your money.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1,000
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
wwolf02
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Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Games, Music, Electronics and Computers :)
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