Powerful and quiet PC
Written: Sep 04 '03 (Updated Sep 22 '03)
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Pros: - processor, hard-drive, memory, DVD burner, quiet work, software bundle
Cons: - speakers
- shared graphic card
- mouse
The Bottom Line: This is a system for students and people that like to experiment with video. Fast and quiet, it gives a lot of power and pleasure to its owner.
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| mikimikiveliki's Full Review: Sony Vaio PCV-RS320 P4-2.6GHz/512/120/DVD-RW/CD-RW... |
If I had any doubt about SONY computers, now I am very proud to be owner of one of them.In fact, I had no idea what SONY PCs are.
SONY VAIO RS-320 is a complete video editing solution for beginner to intermediate users. In a box you find a tower case with a powerful Pentium 4 2.6 GHz processor, PS2 mouse (ordinary, not optical), keyboard, speakers, as well as the telephone cable (modem) and setup instructions.
Highlights
- Pentium 4 /2.6 GHz Hyper-Threading Processor
- Intel 865 chipset
- 800 Mhz Bus
- 512 M DDRAM 2700
- 6 USB 2.0 and 2 FireWire Ports
- Pioneer 104 DVD and CD Burner
- Asus CD player
- Seagate 120G Hard-Drive
- 1 AGP slot free
- 1 expansion 3.5" bay
- 2 PCI slots (1 occupied by 56 kbps internal modem)
Case
The first thing you notice is a stylish silvery tower case, with a nice illuminated blue VAIO logo at the front panel. Behind a cover there is also a DVD and CD burner (DVD-R), a CD player and 2 USB 2.0 and 1 Firewire ports.
Setup and first impressions
Setup is a breeze - just plug your devices and go on. Windows XP Family Edition load quickly. The whole system is incredibly fast. It comes with a lot of memory (512 M, up to 2 GB) and its Pentium 4/ 2.6 GHz processor is so powerful that you feel it.
Surprisingly, the system is also very quiet that I left it few times working during the night (preparing and burning a DVD), and I slept easily.
Software
I found the bundled software very fine. SONY's Click to DVD software is extremely easy to use.
No matter if you import your already prepared AVI or MPEG files, or you use Click to DVD to capture footage from your camcorder, it is easy to do.
Graphic card
Shared graphics is not an ideal solution for video enthusiasts. Maybe with the additional AGP graphic card (there is 1 AGP slot free) the performances should be even better , but it is fine even like this.
One bad and one good news about adding a new graphic card:
Bad news: you cannot deactivate the current graphics "card" in BIOS.
Good news: you can simply add the new one and it should work (with the drivers from the manufacturer of your new graphic card).
Hard-Drive
Seagate 120 G hard-drive is very fast, very large - the one you need for video editing - and also very quiet.
It is partitioned to C: (15G) and D: (100 G). There is also a hidden 5G Drive that is used to recover from disaster.
DVD/CD burner
DVD-R burner is the old Pioneer 104 model. Not too fast (2x DVD write, 8X CD write), but definitely it is a good one, especially in a system with a price tag like this.
Pre-Installed Software:
Click to DVD - DVD Creation, PictureGear Studio - Digital Photo, DVgate Plus. - Digital Video, SonicStage. - Digital Music, VAIO Media - Network File Sharing, PowerDVD - DVD player, Microsoft Works 7.0, Microsoft Age of Empires 2.0, Quicken 2003 New User Edition, Veritas RecordNow, Microsoft Money 2003, Microsoft Encarta Online, Adobe Acrobat Reader, QuickTime, RealOne Player, McAfee Security Center, VAIO Recovery Wizard, VAIO Support Agent
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Overall
This is not a PC for gamers. They'll find its graphics not so defined and fast (but with some additional $$$ they can add a separate graphics card). And then, they'll have no reason to complain.
The only thing I didn't like were speakers and mouse. They are really weak. All the rest is great.
Powerful, easy to use, well equipped with hardware and software, VAIO allows me to do what I could not do with my old PIII/866 with a similar hard disk and memory. This one is much faster and I have almost nothing to add (even a graphics card is fair): USB ports, FireWire, big hard-drive, DVD burner, network adapter. Everything is included.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1100
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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mikimikiveliki
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