Product Reviews

If PC manufacturers are to convince the public that they need to replace the TV, VCR and DVD player in their front room with a PC, they at least need to make their efforts look good. A bog standard monitor with a beige lump attached just won't cut the mustard with your average home owner. They want something understated, classy and easy to use.

Glance at the Sony VGC-V2M, and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was a gorgeous-looking TV. Its piano black finish looks stunning, and the simple unfussy design looks expensive. The PCs in our labs looked mundane in comparison to the Sony's refined, classy exterior.

BEAUTY ON THE INSIDE

Sony hasn't skimped on the specification of the VGC-V2M, either. One of the Intel's recent Pentium 4 chips, code-named 'Prescott', is at the heart of the machine and runs at an ample 3GHz. The rest of the specification isn't gob-smackingly good, but with 512MB RAM and a 200GB hard disk, this machine romped through our benchmarks with a solid overall score of 109.75. That's plenty quick enough, even for some serious image and video editing. Even 3D games performance is pretty good, with Doom 3 racking up a very reasonable 12.2 frames per second in our strenuous test. Knock the detail down to medium and you'll be able to play the game - not to mention most others - smoothly.

The VGC-V2M uses a modestly sized 17inch widescreen TFT display, but its picture quality is as impressive as the Sony is good-looking. Colours are vibrant, and the screen produced lovely deep blacks and crisp, clean whites. We slotted in our test DVD, The Fast and The Furious. Picture quality was superlative. Viewing angles were wide too - perfect for allowing everyone in your lounge to get a good look at the luscious screen. The built-in analogue TV tuner provides a great picture too, as long as you have a decent external aerial. It's a shame Sony didn't use a digital TV tuner, as not only does Freeview digital TV offer more channels, but many programmes are broadcast in widescreen format, which would

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make better use of the V2M's great screen. You could add a USB digital TV tuner later - but this wouldn't integrate neatly with Sony's TV, music and DVD playback software. There is an external video input for both composite and S-video signals if you need it in order to import video from an external source such as a camcorder.

SOUNDING OFF

The built-in speakers do a good job with TV and light music, but aren't anywhere near the quality of our Top 50 2.1 speakers, Logitech's X-230s. If you want something better, an optical digital output allows you to plug the Sony straight into a Home Cinema amplifier or external decoder for surround sound.

A well-specified PC is nothing without suitable software to accompany it. Thankfully, Sony hasn't skimped here. A welcome extra is Microsoft Works 7.0, Microsoft's excellent home productivity suite. It's great for knocking up the odd letter or spreadsheet. But a PC like this doesn't deserve to be stuck doing boring old office tasks. Digital photographers can spruce up their photos with Adobe's Photoshop Elements 2 and a standard edition of Adobe's Premiere Elements allows you to edit your home videos.

One things that surprised us is the fact that Sony has opted not to use Microsoft's Windows Media Center Edition. Instead, it has plumped for a combination of its own proprietary software to let you watch and record TV, play DVDs and CDs or browse music, pictures and video on the hard disk. The software takes a little time to load on occasion - but it does work slickly in conjunction with the remote control, and is easy to use. Setting timer recordings is straightforward too.

The Sony also uses third-party software called TVTV to let you record particular programmes and provide an electronic programme guide, but just like Media Center you'll need to be connected to the Net to do this. Thankfully, getting online is an easy task as the Sony has both a built-in 56K modem and an Ethernet port for connecting to a home network or broadband. Getting a programme recorded is a simple case of hopping online, visiting the TVTV Web site and selecting which programs you'd like to record. You can even schedule recordings on the Sony from another computer, as TVTV will connect to the Net briefly every hour to see if you've set any more recordings to be done on your account. Clever stuff.

BUYING DECISIONS

Sony's VGC-V2M does a good job of replacing your video player, DVD player, TV and PC. But the lack of a digital TV tuner is a huge oversight - and the combination of Sony and third-party software isn't quite as good as Windows Media Center.