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Multimedia Competence - Sony Vaio A690Back in april at Sony's PC manufacturing center in San Diego, line workers assembled the five millionth VAIO computer. It could well have been one of their more illustrious notebook offerings, the Sony VGN-A690.The A690 Vaio is a desktop replacement/multimedia laptop that John Wayne would have loved. Tipping the scales at a hunky 8.5 pounds, this guy isn't built for portability. But with a beautiful high-resolution (1920 x 1200) 17 inch XBrite display, built in DVD player/burner, Vaio AV Entertainment dock, and a 6 pack for company, you'll never want to leave the ranch. A standard Vaio A690 is equipped with a 1.86 GHz processor, however you can customize your A690 over at sonystyle.com with a 2.13GHz Intel Pentium M Processor 770, 100 GB Hard Drive and 2GB of ram, but this top end configuration will set you back the best part of 3000 dollars. On the other hand a lesser configuration of the Vaio VGN-A690 laptop, with a 1.40GHz Intel Celeron M Processor 360, and 40GB hard drive costs around 1600 dollars. Once docked in the A690's AV Entertainment Dock, you'll have access to plenty of expansion slots and ports, including - 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 FireWire (IEEE 1394 or i.Link) port for connecting digital video camcorders, 1 S/PDIF, 1 VGA/DVI monitor port, an infrared port, TV port and memory stick reader. If you purchase a more expensive A690 configuration, you also get Bluetooth. The AV Entertainment dock allows you access to this Vaio's powerful TV tuner, and video recorder. If you've ever wanted to back up your old film favorites on VHS to DVD, you can with the VGN-A690 using Sony's VAIO Zone software. The A690 really comes into it's own as an all in one entertainment/multimedia center. Sony say that XBRITE LCD displays have quicker video response times than normal displays. Also the XBrite coating on the crisp 17 inch display reduces glare and ambient light reflection, supposedly lessening eye fatigue, and making movie watching, and game playing more enjoyable. I can't really fault the VGN-A690, but I certainly wouldn't consider this Vaio if you're a frequent flyer or traveller. The A690 notebook works best taking pride of place on your desk or coffee table, waiting to entertain and relax you after a hard day at the office. One thing concerning me about Vaios at the moment, is the news I'm hearing over at Hardware Analysis that people have reported problems with dodgy memory slots. If you're going to spend thousands of dollars on a laptop, you really need to do the research, not only online. However a good friend of mine bought a Vaio notebook in 2000 and it's still running smoothly after 5 years of operation. The Vaio A690 is available at a number of online retailers and sonystyle.com. Related article: - Multimedia G20 Qosmio from Toshiba By Todd Gold Friday, August 05, 2005 |
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