Sony Vaio..

By its updated chassis, it's tempting to think of the $1,999 Sony Vaio LV180J as a more productivity-oriented PC than Sony's previous all-in-one efforts. Supported by a pedestal stand, the LV180J no longer looks like a screen suspended in air, as was the case with the older Vaio LT19U. A raft of updated features, a larger screen, and a more accessible price tag make the new Sony all-in-one easily as home entertainment friendly as its predecessor. At 24 inches, this Vaio's LCD is probably not large enough to serve as a primary living room screen. And by offering more unique features than its competition, and at a comparable price, the LV180J makes a very strong argument for anyone looking for a digital-media-oriented computer or a secondary digital entertainment hub.

With its 24-inch LCD, the Vaio LV180J joins Apple, Dell, and HP in the large screen all-in-one club. HP's TouchSmart is the largest of the group, with a 25.5-inch display, and its touch-based input remains unique in the category. If the Vaio can't compete on screen size or touch input, we find its overall utility unmatched among its peers. Yes, the LV180J is a powerful computer, and we'd be disappointed if Sony skimped on the core hardware. It also strikes the best balance between day-to-day computing and advanced home entertainment features.

We'll deal with its computing side first. With its Blu-ray drive and desktop processor, the Product Red edition of Dell's new XPS One 24 makes the best comparison with the Vaio.

	Sony Vaio LV180J	Dell XPS One 24 Product Red
Price	$1,999	$2,199
CPU	3.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8400	2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200
Memory	4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM	4GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Graphics	256MB Nvidia Geforce 9300M GS (integrated)	512MB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics card
Hard drives	320GB, 7,200 rpm	750GB, 7,200 rpm
Optical drive	Blu-ray burner	Blu-ray burner
Networking	Gigabit Ethernet; 802.11n wireless	Gigabit Ethernet; 802.11n wireless
Operating system	Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)	Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (32-bit)

Based purely on specs, the Dell XPS One 24 looks more impressive than the Sony system. The Dell has more than twice as much hard-drive space, a more powerful graphics card, and a quad-core CPU, which pays off on multitasking and other kinds of software, even if it has a slower clock speed than the Sony's dual-core chip. That large hard drive in particular gives the Dell the edge in our minds for traditional computing capabilities. Sony lets you replace the hard drive yourself, a useful capability in case you want to replace or expand your drive storage. It's also an advantage over Dell, whose XPS One 24 case is locked down.

The Sony's user-accessible hard drive lets you upgrade or replace the drive yourself.

The Sony also has an advantage with its 64-bit version of Windows Vista, which likely works to its benefit on a few of our tests below. We don't expect you'd use either of these PCs for serious digital media editing, gaming, or other tasks that truly demand the larger amount of addressable memory afforded by a 64-bit operating system. The Sony also doesn't come with enough system memory to truly put 64-bit Vista to work.

We found during testing that even if it wouldn't make the best all-around work computer, the Vaio LV180J will provide you with some impressive single-core application performance. We include the Dell Studio XPS simply to demonstrate how these systems stack up against a traditional desktop, so don't get too caught up in those scores if you're dead set on an all-in-one. Also note that the quad-core Dell XPS One 24's multitasking edge favors how most people actually use their PCs during a workday, with lots of programs open at the same time.