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The designers at Sony have built a pretty compelling entry level digital imaging workstation in the PCV-LX910 Slimtop. While it doesn't sport the expandability of a typical minitower/tower configuration, it makes it up with external I/O capabilities. If you need more hard disk space, and you'll want one if you are going to get into digital video editing, a FireWire hard disk drive will work well with this machine, because internal expandability is severely limited.
If you have bought into Sony's proprietary Memory Stick media, via their digital cameras, DV cameras and media players, then you're digital toys will interface nicely with the Slimtop. If you have peripherals that make use of a PC card slot, you are still in luck as one is provided on the front panel. The software bundle is a worthy collection to test the waters in digital video, digital imaging, and music/sound creation. The machine could easily perform in a corporate environment where digital media is being created for a variety of tasks, such as color reports, newsletters, presentations, and occasional video editing and creation.
The combination LCD/graphics tablet is essentially the heart and sole of this particular machine. It is just so much easier to use the lasso tool in an image editing program, inputting your changes directly on the screen with a stylus, than it is using a mouse or other input device. Sony could have and should have built the machine with a 7200RPM hard drive rather than a 5400RPM drive. Hard drive speed is critical when it comes to video editing, and 7200RPM should be considered the minimum. Another gripe is the consumer electronics giant- mentality when it comes to the PCV-LX910 Slimtop's warranty. While most PC manufacturers offer three year warranties, Sony, like Apple, offers a paltry one-year warranty on its systems, and that is after you register the product. When you spend more than a couple thousand dollars (The Sony VAIO Slimtop line with Pen Tablet starts at $2499) for what is fast becoming a mainstay electronic item, a bit beefier warranty would give consumers more piece of mind.
| Sony Electronics PCV-LX910 Slimtop Pen Tablet PC $2,499 www.sonystyle.com/clubvaio/ |
DMN Recommendation-Buy
While PC manufacturers are just beginning to offer LCD displays as options to their computer systems, Sony has raised the bar with the Slimtop PCV-LX910 Pen Tablet system. If your primary work is still image manipulation, and you can live with the RAM limitations, (if you upgrade to Windows XP with the coupon provided by Sony, consider 256MB RAM to be a minimum acceptable configuration, despite what Microsoft recommends) the PCV-LX910, with its small footprint design and Pen Tablet LCD display should be on your comparison shopping short list.
John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
Related Sites: Digital Producer , Media Workstation , Digital Media Designer , DV Format , Oceania
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