December 22, 2001 03:10
Houston Chronicle Computing Column
By Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
Dec. 22--You don't have to look any farther than the computers included in this review to see the stark differences between consumer and business PCs these days.
Businesses want their computers as simple and plain-vanilla as possible, while consumers increasingly are embracing the idea of convergence -- the marriage of the PC with other household entertainment and communication appliances.
What follows is a look at one computer that's as basic as you can get -- but still looks pretty slick -- and another that aspires to replace your home stereo system.
EVO D500 CMT -- $989, Compaq Computer Corp.: The new Evo line replaces two PC families on Compaq's business side -- the venerable Deskpro brand, aimed at corporations, and the Prosignia, which had two markets: small business and PC "enthusiasts."
The Evo line will likely appeal to the large, medium and small business groups, but it only hints at the potential for enthusiasts. Compaq's Web site offers only mediocre graphics cards, for example, and you can't get a DVD or CD-RW drive if you want it shipped with Windows XP.
Of course, that's not going to stop a serious PC hobbyist, who'll add his or her own muscular graphics card and aftermarket DVD or CD-burner drives.
It's a pretty impressive and powerful bargain. The model I tried came with a 1.5-gigahertz Pentium 4 chip (it's now available at the same price with a 1.7-GHz processor), 128 megabytes of memory, a 20-gigabyte hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, a 16-megabyte nVidia Vanta graphics card, 16-bit sound and 10/100 Ethernet adapter.
This comes in a jet-black case with a brushed silver front. Along with looking pretty cool, the case opens up easily and is very easy to work in. Also, the drives in front can be rotated 90 degrees so the minitower configuration can be converted to a desktop model.
The Evo's costs are kept low by use of standard SDRAM with the Pentium 4 chip, rather than the more expensive RDRAM often associated with that processor. The downside is that the Evo is not going to be the fastest P4 system you can buy, but for most everyday business uses, it's just fine.
VAIO MX -- $2,799, Sony Corp.: Sony's been doing some extremely innovative things with PCs lately, and this one continues that tradition. It plays to Sony's strength as a manufacturer of home entertainment electronics.
It's a stereo system, TV, DVD burner, FM radio, as well as a powerful computer. It can accept data from and save it to a variety of formats -- CD-RW, DVD-RAM, MiniDisc and Memory Stick. It has every kind of port you'd want -- Ethernet, USB, IEEE 1394, serial and parallel.
It came with a 1.7-GHz Pentium 4 chip, 512 MB of memory, an 80-GB hard drive and the DVD-RAM drive, which can also read and write to CD-R and CD-RW discs. It uses nVidia's 32-MB GeForce 2 MX/200 video card for fast graphics, so it's also a decent gamer's machine.
But where it really shines is in its sound. From the easy-to-use software to the high-quality, two-way speakers, Sony is aiming this squarely at music fans. The only thing I wish it included was a subwoofer -- the bass is a little weak. But that's only a mild complaint, given overall how sweet it sounds.
Sony also made the case look cool, so you won't be embarrassed to set it up in your living room. The front of the computer is a mirrored silver, and when it turns on, a hidden LCD window appears on the front that lets you know what mode the PC is in. For example, if you turn on the stereo FM tuner, that information is displayed out front. When you turn the PC off, the display is gone, replaced by that shiny silver finish.
It also functions as a personal video recorder, allowing you to digitally record favorite TV shows, including pausing them while they continue to be stored on the computer's hard drive, then resume them.
However, as you can tell, all these features don't come cheap. In addition, I tried this with Sony's 15-inch, PCVD-15XD3 VAIO digital flat-panel monitor, which adds $600. Total price would be over $3,300, which is astronomical in the age of commoditized PCs.
But Sony is hoping you'll think of this as more than just a computer -- one on which you can burn your own music CDs from tunes grabbed off the radio while monitoring CNN on cable.
--Send e-mail to dwight.silvermanchron.com. Silverman's Web site is at www.dwightsilverman.com.
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