'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
Sony VAIO PCV-LX1
Sony VAIO PCV-LX1
pros and cons
- Stylish, with good connectivity and removable media facilities.
- Unremarkable performance for the price, especially with 3D graphics.
- Editors' review
- Specs
Who else but Sony would design a PC to turn heads, as well as deliver decent performance and a good set of features? The VAIO PCV-LX1 is a desktop PC (Sony's first in the UK) with a difference: it has a compact, vertical system unit and an LCD monitor with integrated stereo speakers. Although we've seen similar design to this before, notably from Apple, this PC has style without compromising functionality. Even the price, at £1,701 (ex. VAT) isn't outrageous, although you are paying a premium for the Sony brand and all the design expertise that goes with it.
The PCV-LX1 is by no means the most highly specified system on the market, being based on a 1GHz Pentium III and supplied with 128MB SDRAM, 32MB of which is shared with the SiS630 chipset's integrated graphics engine. This gives it a respectable but not outstanding Business Winstone 2001 score of 35.5. Sony has chosen to supply the PCV-LX1 with Windows ME installed, and although Windows 2000 Professional may give better performance, it would need more memory than this to achieve it.
Storage is provided by a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 61GB 7,200rpm UltraATA/100 hard drive, with removable media handled by the Samsung SM-308 DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive. The combo drive reads DVD-ROMs at 8-speed and CD-ROMs at 32-speed, while CD-R media are written at 8-speed and CD-RWs rewritten at 4-speed.
The PCV-LX1 has all the connectivity options of a high-end VAIO notebook such as the FX209K, but generally with more of it. The right-hand side of the front fascia slides away to reveal a Type II PC Card slot, a Memory Stick slot, a USB port and a mini IEEE 1394 compatible i.LINK port. The inclusion of a PC Card slot is unusual on a desktop PC, but makes sense in the context of the PCV-LX1's target market: digital cameras and MP3 players generally use SmartMedia or CompactFlash media, adapters for both of which will fit into the PC Card slot.
Around the back there are three more USB ports, a standard-size IEEE 1394 (i.LINK) port, a VGA connector, a digital connector for the flat panel monitor, Ethernet, headphone, microphone and line-in sockets. One of the USB ports is on a PCI blanking plate, of which more later. The case is actually a sleeve for the workings of the PC, which you remove by taking out a single screw (which is blocked when the power cable is plugged in). Once this is out, you can use the fitted handle to slide out the system's innards.
Inside it's quite cramped, but there's still a single free DIMM slot and two PCI slots. As previously mentioned, the blanking plate for a single USB port occupies one of these expansion slots. If you'd rather use the PCI slot for something else, the cable connecting the port to the motherboard is easily disconnected.
The LCD monitor is connected to the system unit with a single cable, and features built-in stereo speakers and a dual hinge stand. This supports a wide variety of monitor heights and angles, and should allow you to find a comfortable position. The 15in. LCD panel has a native resolution of 1,024 by 768.
Top ZDNET Reviews
You plug the keyboard and mouse into PS/2 ports either side of the monitor base. The keyboard is narrower than a standard desktop keyboard, having the cursor keys in the main block. In a typically neat design touch, the wrist rest folds up to form a cover for the keyboard when it's not in use. The mouse is pretty standard, but has a very big wheel compared with Microsoft's Wheel mouse.
The supplied software concentrates on still and moving images, with some music-related software thrown in. Adaptec's DirectCD and Easy CD Creator are supplied for use with the CD-RW drive. The rest includes DVGate, Media Bar DVD player, PictureGear , PictureToy, VisualFlow, MovieShaker and OpenMG Jukebox. An Adobe bundle of Premiere LE, Photoshop LE, GoLive and LiveMotion is also included.
You won't buy this PC if you want top-class performance or excellent value for money. It's not poor in either area, but this is definitely a premium piece of kit. Nor will you want to use this system for playing 3D games, as the integrated graphics on the SiS630 chipset are not up to the task. The removable media facilities -- both solid-state and optical -- are very good, however, as are the connectivity options. Most of all, though, this is a superbly styled desktop PC that would grace any executive office or living room.