Sony Vaio XL201 Media Centre £549 + £10.95 P+P

alba37

On hot deals it also says:

This Sony media center was £999, but has been reduced to £599 - or even £549 at some Sony shops (Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Brent Cross, and others).. as it has been superseded with a machine with Vista pre-loaded (which is £1099), only hardware difference is 2gb RAM as far as I can see.... if bought before March 15th (or registered before March 31st) entitled to free Vista Premium upgrade

I wonder if I order now, will I get it in time to get vista? Think I will go for it!

webuserisme

Raju wrote: »

I agree it is a great desktop from sony and at a very good price.
Just check on sony website a slightly upscale model XL202 (which has a bit high CPU ) is priced at £1799

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.action?product=VGX-XL202&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VD+XL+Series

AFAICT that new model also has a rather expensive Bluray drive in it, doesn't it?

alba37

alba37 wrote: »

On hot deals it also says:

This Sony media center was £999, but has been reduced to £599 - or even £549 at some Sony shops (Luton, Milton Keynes, Northampton, Brent Cross, and others).. as it has been superseded with a machine with Vista pre-loaded (which is £1099), only hardware difference is 2gb RAM as far as I can see.... if bought before March 15th (or registered before March 31st) entitled to free Vista Premium upgrade

I wonder if I order now, will I get it in time to get vista? Think I will go for it!

Sorry that quote is wrong!

It is Mircrosoft who had the upgrade offer, it expired on the 15th

lowedb

Just my 2ps worth.

I bought a Sony XL1000 when they came out last year. There were some limitations that meant it didn't do what was expected, and there seemed to be a technical problem that Sony technical support didn't get close to resolving (in fact didn't reaaly try), so after 2 months of aggro it went back for a refund.

So in my experience, don't expect any help from Sony if there's a problem.

Odd_Fellow

lowedb wrote: »

Just my 2ps worth.

I bought a Sony XL1000 when they came out last year. There were some limitations that meant it didn't do what was expected, and there seemed to be a technical problem that Sony technical support didn't get close to resolving (in fact didn't reaaly try), so after 2 months of aggro it went back for a refund.

So in my experience, don't expect any help from Sony if there's a problem.

Yes, the one thing that sticks in my mind is the countless people I have heard complain about the non-existent support from Sony when its computers go wrong.

Nice price though this is, Sony can stick it. There are plenty of problems in life without having to deal with Sony Tech Support and Warranty Departments.

dangeroussports

Hello.

I brought one of those on the 10th March for £599. The guy told me that there was a free Vista Premium upgrade if I purchesed and registered the product before the 15th March. So I did.

I did haggle and got a further 1 one year warranty out of them. You dont have to persist too much for it.

Anyway, the XL201 is an excellent piece of kit. Ive hooked it up to my wifi network and attached it to my cable box. Ive also hooked it upto my HDMI telly via the HDMI input (excellent picture).

For 599, VISTA and a free extended warranty its a good deal.
For 549 and a free extended warranty its a good deal.

However there are no manuals with it. You'll have to download it (not a problem). Sony arent the best for technical suppport but if you just want to do the basics stuff everyone talks about then buy it.

But if you want to do complicated stuff (like me) then you'll need to learn a liitle more about divx, torrents etc.

Oh, the harmony remotes work well with it too.

Go for it,

dangeroussports

btw its not a duel tuner and nor does it have cross through spdif optical sound. has one spdif input and one output

gjchester

AS I posted in Hexus where this came from

Knowing the sony's I've worked on it's going to be heavily proprietry in terms of internal layout and riser cards, whilst you may be able to upgrade some bits, for a lot of it nothing but sony parts will fit.

Course it may just be a re-badge of another computer but I suspect upgrading won't be a cheap or easy option.

Found a review of the XL202

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/97727/sony-vaio-vgxxl202.html

The 202 has a blueray drive and 2 x 250GB HDD, the 201 and DVD drive and 1 x 250GB drive. they say expansion posibilities are practically non existant too.

dangeroussports

Granted.

However it is aimed at the AV entertainment system. For £549 and a two year warranty (you'll have to haggle for the extra year) is still not bad.

Everyone should rush out and buy one.

Although I did pay for it on my Natwest charge card (I get a further year ontop of the two years they gave me!!) I should of, with hindsight gone for an external HDD - I think they were offering a 350GB USB drive.

Go haggle and bag yourself a bargain. You can add another tuner card (why not ask them to throw one in) anyway.

Upgradeing can be done externally if you want. It has plenty of ports.

Haggle!
Freebies!
Buy it!

carl_east

Omid wrote: »

id invest in a ps3

Completely agree with Omid. Why would you spend £550 on this thing when you can buy a PS3 and run Linux on it? The PS3 will do everything that the media centre does and more. It has a more powerful processor than any other computer on the market and to top it it also has a graphics chip that is more powerful than anything else on the market. It has Blu-ray so you can watch HD stuff and it has wifi and bluetooth (meaning you will be able to connect a Logitech Bluetooth mouse and keyboard).

It really is a no brainer. There is absolutely no reason to get the media centre. Fair enough you might actually want Windows but Linux is all you need and you can add all the video and office applications you need to it.