Sony Vaio XL2 or wait 'til Blu-ray?

[Roger]

On the eve of Sony's own Blu-ray revolution Sony just released its latest Windows XP Media Center 2005 based super-system the Vaio XL2. This is Sony's follow up to last year's XL1 and has a few key improvements. The new Vaio will give you the full all-in-one Media Center treatment acting as TiVo, CD/DVD player and digital media server and is sure to keep HTPC buffs on the couch for weeks. Like most of the Vaio line it sports a distinct futuristic design, split into two elegant black and silver boxes. One box houses its powerful Media Center PC and the box is a 200 CD / DVD changer. The disk changer will easily absorb better part of the most people's CD collection. It will then rip your CDs to its 320 Gig hard drive conveniently cataloguing and organizing them with ID3 tags.

Vaio XL2 Highlights

Wireless 802.11b/g
320 Gig HDD
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
FireWire/i.Link Support
200 CD/DVD changer
Wireless mouse / keyboard
HDTV Tuner
nVidia GeForce 6600GT Graphics Engine
Viiv - compatible dual core Intel CPU
HDMI Connection for HDMI/DVI HDTV

Early reports from a shining review from PC Magazine say this new Vaio is quieter than earlier efforts from Sony and even quieter still than last year's XL1. With an HDTV tuner and video capture card the 320 Gig HDD seems a little light. But you might not record as much HD content as you'd like since you can only record HD over air broadcasts. If you subscribe to Satellite or digital Cable TV you can't record any of its HD programming unless you're employing a hack to a digital boxes FireWire port.

The lack of Blu-ray is a disappointment but probably realistic at this time. Although it relegates the XL2 to a fine collection of last year's technology Blu-ray's absence keeps it somewhat affordable. At an average price of $2,600 it's actually a good deal considering you're getting a powerful HTPC loaded with extras and HDMI. The inclusion of Blu-ray right now would have probably pushed the price point beyond the scope of a mainstream consumer market. Now that the era of Blu-ray is upon us you should seriously consider the wisdom of an investment into a full featured HTPC system that isn't likely to be upgradeable to a BD player.

Because this system isn't likely to be upgraded to Blu-ray it makes the question as to whether or not its HDMI port is fully HDCP compliant a moot point. Beware of video cards by nVidia and ATI with HDMI ports because they might not have HDCP compatibility; scandalous!

Despite PCMagazine's positive review it's hard to give an enthusiastic thumb up to a full featured HTPC solution where we stand at the time of writing this in late May '06. Imagine explaining to your spouse and friends that although you just spent almost $3000 on an HTPC you still can't playback the new Blu-ray disk everybody's talking about.

But this is still a powerful HTPC and the 200 disk changer is a great feature that turns it into a real media jukebox powerhouse. If you're resigned to wait another year or so for the current disk format war to play itself out the Vaio XL2 constitutes a good buy for technology that is about to be eclipsed.

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