14 DAY TRIAL // Sony wants 2007 to be a breakthrough especially in the home entertainment segment. And it seems that they've started out with a bang because on Sunday they have released a new home theater hi-definition PC (let's call it a HTPC). The newcomer called XL3 is an update to the already known XL2 and includes an integrated Blu-Ray burner capable of both playback and recording of BR disks.
The Digital Living System allows the user to watch HD content, listen to music, record, store, and playback content on BD disks. Essentially the new XL3 tries to fill a gap between high-end PCs and home entertainment systems. And I guess it succeeds in doing that pretty well.
The XL3 comes with a hybrid digital/analog NTSC/ATSC television tuner and has digital CableCARD capabilities built in. You can even use it to record HD programming if you feel like it. The system comes with wireless mouse and keyboard and is encased in a regular home-theater like box so it won't take up more space than a Blu-Ray player.
On the hardware side, the XL3 includes a 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 CPU, 2GB PC2-5300 DDR2 memory, 500 GB storage space (2*250 HDDs preconfigured in Raid mode), multimedia card reader and many more. The output is being taken care of by an NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GTL GPU. The core operating system used by the PC is Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium.
"With the XL3 Digital Living System consumers can turn a typical entertainment center into a thrilling high-definition media hub and enjoy HD in a way previously not possible," stated Mike Abary, vice president of VAIO product marketing for Sony Electronics.
We don't know when the XL3 will be mass released, but Sony says it should be available in the spring. Expect to pay about $3,300 for Sony's HTPC.