Otaku Gadgets

Nowadays the All-in-one form factor PCs are drawing all the attention in desktop PC segment. Till a few years back Apple used to rule this segment with its cult defining iMac range of desktops. However, the entry of manufacturers like Sony, Dell and HP is now giving Apple a run for its money. Sony has been able to capture a large part of the high end PC segment with its premium VAIO range of laptops and All in one PCs. The new VAIO L117FX All-in-one PC is Sony’s weapon to counter the revamped iMacs that Apple released late this year. The $1999 price tag of the L117FX makes it costlier than both the iMac and the HP TouchSmart 600. However, it offers impressive performance and near perfect multimedia experience for the Windows users.

The design of the VAIO L117Fx is not much different from the previous generation All-in-ones from the stable of Sony. It offers HDMI interface and beats the competition by offering a useful PIP feature with HDMI. However, recording from the HDMI input to the PC’s hard disk is not supported. Since the L117FX is shipped with Windows 7 Home Premium, it supports a set of multi touch functions, a feature that is worth noticeable.

The VAIO L117FX edges ahead of the iMac in features by a decent margin. It can be mounted on a wall and has an inbuilt TV tuner as well. Apple still does not use Blu-Ray drive. However, the price of the iMac is more realistic from a user’s perspective. The fast quad core Intel CPU in the VAIO gives it an edge in gaming and media encoding related tasks but HP and Apple have some models that sport more powerful CPUs. The iMacs take the lead in many applications over the L117FX, though the HP and Dell models lag behind. Though the margin is not much, one should expect stellar all round performance for this sort of price.

For the users who have an ever increasing collection of HD movies and games, the VAIO L117FX is the ideal choice. Its mammoth 1TB hard drive will ensure that the users do not run out of space soon. The presence of 6 GB DDR2 RAM rules out any memory upgrade in the coming years. The 24 inch display is good for watching HD content and the color reproduction is fairly accurate.

The GeForce GT 240M graphics chip used in the VAIO L117 is a robust one and its 1GB memory gives enough juice to run the current generation games with maximum effects enabled at medium resolutions. Apart from the USB ports, this model is equipped with FireWire 400 port and a media card reader. However, no eSATA port is included with this PC. Blu-Ray playback is almost flawless on this model, though the audio is a bit weaker. The audiophiles will want to pair a 5.1 speaker set with this PC to get satisfying audio-visual experience. Sony offers a standard 1 year warranty for this product and the web site offers a lot of useful information on issues like backup and maintenance.