One of the first all-in-one desktop computers I ever laid eyes on was a widescreen beauty from Sony. Nearly seven years later, the company's latest entry into an increasingly crowded market brings multi-touch, high definition multimedia entertainment in a powerful and attractive package. The VAIO J Series sports the latest Intel Core processors and GeForce graphics, backed up by generous system memory and a good sized hard drive. It also brings an adaptive and intuitive media application to the party, along with an easy launch program bar across the top of the desktop screen.
The display has grown up since the first 17.3 inch widescreen W Series all-in-one I spotted all those years ago. The VAIO J Series PC has a 21.5 inch multi-touch, full 1080p high definition VAIO Display Plus with multiple lamp technology, claimed to offer "a brilliantly detailed view of HD movies, photos and games with rich, vivid colors." Stylish of course, the computer has a useful looped space underneath the display for offline storage of the keyboard.
It's powered by an Intel Core i3-350M at 2.26 GHz (2.66GHz Core i7-620M also available) and NVIDIA GeForce 310M graphics with half a gig of dedicated onboard memory. The computer comes with a generous 500GB HDD and system memory runs to 4GB DDR3 SDRAM. There's a DVD burner optical drive (with a Blu-ray option available), Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n and a built-in Motion Eye face-tracking webcam.
The VAIO J runs on Windows 7 Home Premium, but no doubt the first thing users will notice is the VAIO Gate bar across the top of the screen for easy access to programs and applications. Users are also offered gesture-controlled browsing through Sony's Media Gallery which organizes and showcases images, video and music. The suite will even remember preferences and recommend content based on previous user choices.
The Sony VAIO J Series PC is available now for pre-order, with prices starting at around US$900.