Hi Michael, I was impressed with the SONY/PC bus campaign mainly because I assume it's the beginning of a national TV campaign - I might be wrong though. We should see by early November.
I went to the SONY/PC site... Let's say that it appears the Hollywood division may be handling the Web site, which means that it's hard to figure out much about the computers... Hm. Well, the computers are definitely aimed at the home entertainement crowd:
Here's what struck me: they are offering SONY Trintron screens (the best), Sony CD-ROM drives, SONY MPEG technology (they may be working with CUBE here), SONY speakers, SONY digital still camera, SONY CD-ROM writers, SONY video cam and SONY tape drives... well I guess the co-processors must be made by someone else..
Their dealer page is still under construction...
Here's what you get for an announced price of $2500 (I imagine the street price is less):
Hardware Specifications
PROCESSOR
166 MHz Intel(R) Pentium(R) Processor
HARD DRIVE
2.1 GB
STANDARD RAM
32 MB EDO RAM, expandable to 128 MB
L2 CACHE MEMORY
256 KB Pipeline Burst SRAM
MODEM
28.8 kbps DSVD Modem / 14.4 kbps FAX Modem
GRAPHICS
3D Acceleration
VIDEO RAM
2 MB EDO RAM
CD-ROM DRIVE
8X CD-ROM Drive
FLOPPY DISK DRIVE
3.5" 1.44 MB Micro Floppy Disk Drive
TELECOMMUNICATION CAPABILITIES
Full Duplex Speaker Phone with Echo Cancellation
Answering Machine Functionality with Personal Mailboxes
Fax Send / Receive
SUPPLIED ACCESSORIES
Keyboard
Mouse
RJ11 Phone Cord
Power Cord
MPEG
"Sony Tuned" MPEG1 Digital Video which supports full screen playback
SERVICE
One Year Limited On-Site Standard (certain restrictions apply)
LIMITED WARRANTY
One Year Parts and Labor Standard (certain restrictions apply)
EXPANSION CAPABILITIES
Three PCI slots (one occupied by DSVD modem)
Two ISA slots
One Shared PCI / ISA slot
Two Drive Bays
MIDI / Game Port
Two USB Ports*
SOUND CAPABILITIES
3D SRS Surround Sound
16-bit Stereo CD-Quality Sound
Recording Capability
Wavetable Synthesis
MPC-3 Compliant
POWER REQUIREMENTS
200 Watts maximum
DIMENSIONS (W x H x D)
8.9" x 14.8" x 17.8"
WEIGHT
25 lbs. 8 oz.
Michael, my sense is that it will take a few quarters for SONY to get their act together.
Thomas |
