Sony VAIO VGX-XL1 Home Theater PC

A true digital living system

Strengths: 200 disc changer that will automaticaly rips your entire music / dvd collection to your HD without you having to swap a disc. Built in Wifi is nice and form factor as well as design are a plus.

Weaknesses: Some people encounter a lot of bugs with this unit. The system as a whole, is very large and cumbersome. No HD tuner.

Summary: Sony almost got this one right. It has just about everything. If you are able to provide this machine with the few needed upgrades such as , more memory, 2 much larger HD's (I added 800GB) and an HD TV tuner, this machine can be very impressive. It has the looks of an oversized HTIB but the potential of a full fledged high performance MCE pc if given the right upgrades. I am yet to play around with upgrading its video card but that is still something I am very interested in. The true HD output via its HDMI output is very nice. It will up-convert any dvd and give you the opportunity to play your favorite pc games in HD. Keep in mind the included GFX card is a budget unit so don't expect anything exceptional. It is a very versatile unit and at the price i paid for it i would gladly do it again. I considered the newer version but based on the fact that i paid around 1500 less i felt doing the upgrades was worth the savings. I am very happy with this unit and commend sony on a materialized concept that more box makers should be embracing.

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• Hi, I saw your post and I recently purchased the XL1 as a Floor m...

just got the xl1 from tigerdirect.com and found the best price on pricegrabber

Strengths: this is a awesome computer.very fast wireless lan works great. cd changer is a little loud but still worth it. it is the way of the future i think.

Weaknesses: the picture is way to big on the web.

Summary: sony vaio xl1 is great. take it out of the box and set it up in under 20 mins. comes with just about everything you need to hook it up to a tv. but really wish it came with rca cables. had to go buy them at the store. other then that. everything is wonderful with this computer. if you are thinking about it like i was for months and months. the price is right. so dont think twice about it. just buy it.you will love it

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Sony VAIO VGX-XL1 Digital Living System Desktop PC

Strengths: 200 Disk DVD+DL Burner

Weaknesses: Loud disk changing

Summary: What I like about the machine:

1. Batch burning CDs to lossless format. I saved hours of time burning my 1400 CDs to my hard drive. This was the main reason I wanted the machine and it performed like a champ (pulling over tag info and album art automatically!!!).

2. DVD changer integration. When you load movies into the changer, it goes out to the internet and pulls album art and movie descriptions. This is really cool for managing DVDs.

3. If you have your own ".vob" formated files on your hard drive, you can add your own cover art and the folder will show up with the DVDs in the changer ("My DVDs" section)in WMC.

4. Photos look great over the HDMI out on my big screen HDTV!

5. Your Yahoo music library content will show up with your own CDs in WMC. XM Radio (if you have a subscription) is available in the other content section.

6. It keeps track of playlist by most played, favorites, etc... and it is easy to create playlists on the fly.

7. Easy to record cable content over a direct connection to your cable line. It is also easy to add HDTV OTA recording with a VBox Catseye USB tuner.

8. The included wireless keyboard is great. I keep it on the coffee table and can surf the internet or pull up a movie in seconds! Keep some rechargeable batteries nearby and you will never have to worry.

9. The fact that they were ingenious enough to put an ir receiver in the unit. I have programmed my harmony remote to do all the functions of the WMC remote that came with the machine.

10. Very quiet and runs cool.

What I don't like:

1. Had to add USB soundcard to get DTS sound. I bought an inexpensive Turtle Beach Roadie that was up to the task.

2. Has issues coming out of hybernation. I now just leave mine on all the time. Mine also has issues with rebooting on occasion, but not enough to complain about.

3. Occasionally loses connection to the DVD changer. I usually just reinstall the DVD changer update and it fixes the problem. I have not had the problem in about 8 months, but it is frustrating when it does happen.

4. The changer is huge and it is also loud when changing discs. I bought a long firewire cord and keep my changer in a separate room.

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