Sony VAIO VGN-A790

The question isn’t what Sony’s VAIO VGN-A790 does, so much as, what doesn’t it do? This multimedia monster rivals most fully loaded desktops, with a 2-GHz Centrino CPU, a full gigabyte of memory, and a glossy 17-inch widescreen display. You also get a docking station with a built-in TV tuner, so you can record your favorite shows onto the 100GB hard drive, and a set of external speakers. With so many parts required to get the full experience, you may be better off buying a slim desktop or a notebook with a TV tuner built in.

The full-sized keyboard has a comfortable layout and excellent feedback, and the large and extra-wide touchpad makes cursor movements on the widescreen LCD much easier. Since there’s more than enough room, the VGN-A790 comes with every port under the sun, including three USB 2.0 and FireWire, plus lots more ports on the docking station. You can even hook this system up to your cable or satellite box and plug in a set of stereo speakers.

The display, hard drive, and processor performance are exemplary and offer loads of overhead for media making and storage. All programs launched very quickly, and the ATI accelerator combined with all the system memory to multitask several large windows with ease. Not only did the VGN-A790 notch a sky-high MobileMark score of 240, this powerhouse thrashed through lengthy disk writes and TV recording.

It almost goes without saying for a VAIO, but the 17-inch widescreen UXGA display is pin-sharp and richly hued. If anything, it is too much of a good thing. The default 1920 x 1200 resolution and glossy finish are great for DVD playback. In fact, the screen looks like a Plasma TV in dim conditions. Everyday text looks microscopic (until you zoom in), and most light sources behind the user lead to screen glare.

The VGN-A790 is all about photo, movie, music, and TV playback and creation. In addition to every other imaginable kind of media read-and-write functionality, the DVD burner supports double-layer writing, to store over 8GB of data or video on compatible discs. As usual, Sony piles on the software, with an incredible suite that edits, plays back, and records photos, DVDs, and music. This is truly a media creation deck in quasi-portable form.

The main attraction is the combo of the TV tuner and personal video recorder, which is embedded in the included docking station. When docked, the VGN-A790 scans a video feed for available channels and even downloads your local TV schedule. The TV image is acceptable, if a bit fuzzy on an oversized screen that exposes each and every flaw in decoding both low-res TV signals and DVDs. You can pause and record live signals and schedule recordings of a show or an entire series. Our test recordings were smooth and as sharp as the original feed.

Sony’s own VAIO Zone software ties together all of these multimedia pieces with an interface that closely resembles Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition, but isn’t quite as smoothly integrated or intuitive. Historically, VAIO laptops have eschewed Windows MCE in favor of Sony’s alternative, but we fail to see any advantage to the Zone software.

 The docking station could be more elegant. The latch connecting this heavy dock to the back third of the VGN-A790 was wobbly and did not lock securely. Meanwhile, the unnecessarily large triangular external speakers require multiple wires to connect to the dock, and they didn’t produce very loud or convincing sound. We do like the inclusion of a remote control and a wireless mouse to control all of the action while you sit back in your chair.

When you’re not checking out episodes of The Family Guy or CSI, you can take advantage of the VGN-A790’s ATI Mobility Radeon X600 graphics and do some serious damage in your first-person shooter game of choice. The card comes complete with 256MB of its own video memory, so your gameplay will never feel bogged down.

At a budget-busting $2,899, the Sony VAIO VGN-A790 seems like a bargain because of its many talents. The high-octane hardware and seemingly endless software bundle put this system in the upper echelon of multimedia machines. Nevertheless, we think Toshiba’s Qosmio G25 offers more bang for the buck even though it weighs a pound more. It runs Media Center, has a better design, and has both a TV tuner and great speakers built in.