14 DAY TRIAL // There are computer customers out there that are more concerned about their PC's design and "cool" and elegant case than about what's inside of that "cool" case. Well, these users need a computer for pretty easy tasks as surfing the Web, emailing or as a multimedia center; they are not computer geeks, nor experts, not by a very looong shot. For this special, "technology-challenged" group, Sony launched its VAIO TP Series Living Room PC.
According to the Sony Web site it is "boasting an innovative design" and it is a "spherical, elegant PC". Produced mainly with home entertainment in mind, the Sony VAIO TP Series Living Room PC comes with a middle level Intel processor, the new Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium operating system and a massive 300GB hard disk drive for all those movies and music plays. In order to make its role as a home entertainment center more credible, Sony equipped this mini computer system with a wireless keyboard, but no mouse, only a touchpad and a remote control.
Even if the hardware features of a mini system like this one are not very high, Sony did however a good job, selecting the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 5600 based on Intel's Viiv technology running at 1.83GHz and with 2MB of level two of cache, backed up by the 945GM chipset which supports a frontside bus frequency of 667MHz. A generous computer memory amount comes packed inside, 2 modules of 1GB DDR2 each. The mass storage drive was not an afterthought either, as the 300GB capacity and the 7200 rpm feature, combined with the SATA interface gives it enough of a kick for a medium level system. All the usual (and some 'unusual') connectivity ports are present, such as USB, VGA out, card reader, audio out and so on.
Multiple networking options are available, from the classical wired Ethernet adapter, to the wireless IEEE 802.11bg compliant network controller. The optical drive is a multi purpose one, including CD read and write, DVD single and dual layer read and write, as well as DVD-RAM write and read features.