The Sony VGC-LS30E desktop computer combines the sleekness of a Sony desktop with the ability to watch and record TV. Sony has long been known for designing stylish desktop computers, and this LS all-in-one systems continues the tradition.

The LS30E ships with a 19-inch LCD display, large enough to view from across the room, and its deep 1680x1050 resolution give you a crisp and clear image even when you're looking at it up close. But the neatest feature of the display is its transparent polycarbonate frame that provides a fairly convincing illusion that the display is floating above your desktop (or whatever surface you have placed it on).

This desktop computer ships with a built-in TV tuner, so all you need to do is hook up your cable signal and you'll be able to record and watch your favorite TV shows on the LS30E. Windows Vista Home Premium edition is preloaded, so all the software to handle the recording and scheduling of television is at your fingertips. Sony even includes a remote control so you can use the LS30E as a television/PVR combo without even thinking about its computing capabilities.

But those capabilities are rather impressive when you need them. These desktop computers are built around an Intel Dual Core T2080 processor with twin 1.73GHz cores on a single chip. And Sony includes a whopping 2GB of 533MHz DDR2 memory with that CPU, making these systems great for multitasking.

With a PVR system, you want to have plenty of hard drive space and the LS30E ships with a quarter-terabyte of it--a 250GB 7,200rpm hard drive. This gives you ample room to record a host of TV shows and install large applications.

The optical drive is a DVD writer that supports a wide variety of formats, from traditional CDs and DVDs to Dual Layer media that lets you store up to four hours of high-quality media on a single disk. This drive can also write to DVD-RAM disks, which are great for scheduled backups as they can be rewritten to up to 100,000 times.

And all of this is built into the back of the widescreen LCD, letting this system live up to being an all-in-one. All of the cabling is neatly bundled and all of the ports and slots are on the sides of the display, so that nothing shatters the illusion of the unmarred, floating screen.

At the top of the screen is a built-in webcam and microphone, so you can use these desktop computers for online video chatting or videoconferencing as well. It's not a high-end camera, but it offers a decent image and it's nice to have that functionality built in.

As is often the case with all-in-one systems, a lot of the extra features are more of what you'd find in a laptop computer. Even the graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 which Sony uses in a lot of the VAIO laptops, but it provides dedicated video memory and a performance boost for 3D gaming.

There's a PCMCIA slot and an ExpressCard slot for adding laptop peripherals to the LS30E, as well as four USB ports and a Firewire port for hooking up digital camcorders and other devices. These desktops have additional slots for inserting Memory Stick and Secure Digital media cards, so you can transfer files and photos from a compatible digital camera or PDA.

In addition to a modem and a network interface, LS30E has built-in 802.11b/g wireless, a handy feature for all-in-one systems that you might want to have in the living room or den. And the input devices are wireless as well, so you can compute from your couch without worrying about having cords dragging across the room. The major drawback with all-in-one systems is the lack of upgrade capability, but the LS30E ships with so many features, that shouldn't be as much of an issue-- What will slow you down is their price.
But it's not unusual for space-saving systems to run more than their bulkier tower-based counterparts. If you're looking for style over savings, the Sony VAIO VGC-LS30E all-in-one is about as stylish a way to combine a PC and a TV as you can find.


Pro: Beautiful screen, excellent design
Con: Expensive, upgrade potential limited

Warranty
1-year limited