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Fuzzy Logic Sony’s Living Room PC – a better buy than a Blu-ray equipped notebook PC?
Fuzzy Logic Sony’s Living Room PC – a better buy than a Blu-ray equipped notebook PC? | Sony’s Living Room PC – a better buy than a Blu-ray equipped notebook PC? |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 04 March 2008 | |
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Sony is also a company famed for interesting technologies and designs, with the new Living Room PC, previewed at CES 2008, now making its way to Australian retail stores, and sporting a round, box-hat shaped design that’s striking and, similar to one of Sony’s marketing slogans, ‘unlike any other’. To create the Vaio-branded Living Room PC, model number TP2, Sony had to use notebook parts, known for their small size, giving Sony the ability to create a round design that would be much harder to create using standard desktop components. Sony has also included an HDMI connector and a playback-only Blu-ray drive, although the drive is capable of reading and burning CDs and DVDs. There is also an HD TV tuner built-in, and when plugged into any TV or display device with HDMI, the Living Room PC is a great ‘digital entertainment hub’ for any home. So why would a consumer want Sony’s Living Room PC – priced at AUD $2399 – instead of the AUD $699 PS3 which can also browse the web, play games and play Blu-ray movies? Because the Living Room PC is a Windows Vista computer with Windows Media Center. These have become increasingly popular in the US for consumers to watch TV, record it, play movies and do real computing on the equivalent of a 40-inch plus LCD or Plasma display. Windows Media Center turns computers into the equivalent of a Windows-powered TiVO (a digital video recorder that’s wildly popular in the US). Media Center PC are likewise becoming more popular, because they are real computers and not just a video recorder with a hard drive. You can run any standard Windows software on the Living Room PC, plug in any USB or firewire device, and do real-world computing and web browsing with IE, Firefox, Safari or more – and not struggle with still admittedly very good consoles web browsers. The Living Room PC is Sony’s attempt to break into this market, complete with funky design and Blu-ray playback to sweeten the offer. Sony’s Jun Yoon, Channel Marketing Manager for VAIO at Sony Australia, explained that Australians are embracing HD products, saying that: “In 2007, Australians spent $2.83 billion on high definition products, purchasing over 1.2 million high definition flat panel TVs, and almost 180,000 HD movies. As HD becomes the home entertainment format of choice, the TP series has been created as a link between people and HD devices and represents true AV/IT convergence within the home.” Sony also quoted their own study, crafted by GfK, a global firm that analyses sales trends, retail sales and other data on consumer electronics, saying that in Q4 2007, “consumers [spent] more money on high definition products than ever before”. Their study further reports that “Q4 2007 also saw broadcasters fulfilling this demand by increasing their quotas of HD content and launching additional HD channels. Sales of HD camcorders in Q4 2007 rose 80.2% from Q3 2007, showing the HD format is growing in popularity for families to record and share their memories”. So, what else is in Sony’s Living Room PC, and why would you buy it instead of a Blu-ray equipped notebook? Please read onto page 2. |
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