Review of PCV-W10 Desktop by Sony

Anonymous Howard writes "Designtechnica has a review of Sony's Vaio PCV-W10 desktop computer. This computer is unique in the sense that not only is the computer built into the back of the monitor, but the keyboard folds up to cover the screen. Once folded up, this thing becomes a Clock/CD Player. Strange..."

This would be cool

[sickboy_macosX]

It would be kind of cool to have Unix/Linux running on that thing. :) I might use Macs, but I like Visually Freindly Technology..

Not to the point

[OpenSourced]

I think the review is not to the point. The real point with such a design would be to speculate about the end public. Instead, he blabbers about video editing and FPS. I don't really think that the prospective buyer of this machine is being worried about Teraflops. He (or, rather more possibly she) is probably more interested in having an all-in-one machine that will a) be cute b) allow to check the mail from bed c) match the room wallpaper d) play music e) be a conversation piece f) once a month, work as a real PC.

Instead of concentrating on these things, we get a meningless comparative, as if it was a normal desktop. Better review at hardware central [earthweb.com] (IMHO).

Between a rock and a hard place

[JonathanF]

From what I've seen (in this review and elsewhere), the Vaio W just fits into a horribly awkward spot in the market that will only suit a few people. If you just need a compact all-in-one computer, then Apple and Gateway undercut the price by a few hundred. Both Apple and Gateway also have AIO units that will be considerably better for both DVDs and some light gaming (especially with the 17" iMac's GeForce 4 MX).

The W is only for people who REALLY need to save space, or else appreciate the features of the keyboard-up clock and CD player.

16x9 screen sucks for a computer

[nut]

I bought a Sony VAIO PCG-C1VE (PCG-C1VN in the states) a couple of years ago, and I would now advise people never to get a PC with a 16x9 form factor screen.
The screen is only 8 inches so the only really useable resolution is 1024x480. An awful lot of applications don't fit on this from top to bottom, and using a text editor, IDE or even surfing the web is very frustrating because you can view so few lines of text at a time. (Very painful if you're trying to write code!)
Having to continually right click on the taskbar and use the keyboard to move windows up to get at the buttons at the bottom of some app (because your mouse stops at the top of the screen) will very quickly drive you mad.
If you're going to extend the screen on a workstation you probably want to make it taller, not wider.
If the screen was big enough to use at about 1280x768 it might not be so bad. But I still wouldn't consider wide-screen an advantage for anything but watching movies.
I believe it's a 15 inch screen, so I'm really not sure how good it would be.

Re: apps suck too

[TeknoHog]

For almost everything except graphics work, I'd prefer a screen which is larger in the vertical direction. Reading text can be really fast when the window is quite narrow, then you can see one line at a time and just "scroll down" with your eyes. The higher the screen, the better.

For some reason it seems that every time a bigger resolution screen comes out, new applications are released with higher toolbars, keeping the usable vertical workspace constant. Of course I try and minimize the problem, using a windowmanager without any taskbars etc, but there's still work for application designers.

Then again, it might be that for most people the computer is a glorified game console and movie player, so a 16x9 screen makes sense. For the rest of us who actually work with computers, it's a lot different.