Sony VAIO VPC L218FX: An All-in-One Desktop That’s Made of Gold

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Impressive display and audio quality
Sound general performance
Blu-ray support and TV tuner

Our Verdict

You yield a pretty cent for near-perfection. Little about Sony's VAIO VPC L218FX completely-in-one is disappointing, save for its price.

Sony VAIO VPC L218FX big-screen all-in-one desktop PC

Sony's latest 24-inch all-in-one background is a beauty–of course, one would expect nada fewer from a system that's practically plated in gold. We jest at. The Sony VAIO VPC L218FX comes with a effectual loadout for a big-concealment all-in-one background; notwithstandin, at a steep $2049 (as of May 5, 2020) this PC feels American Samoa if Sony purchased its parts and pieces from the SkyMall catalog. Although we're huge fans of this entirely-in-one, we have to note that competitors offer a pretty similar set of features, speeds, and capacities for a bring dow price.

Tucked within this elegantly designed all-in-unrivaled information processing system is one of Intel's latest Sandy Bridge chips, the 2GHz Core i7-2630QM processor, which features four physical cores that can pass over to a virtual Ashcan School thanks to Intel's Hyper-Threading applied science. Automatic overclocking, otherwise known as Turbo Boost, can bulk the CPU up to a right 2.9GHz of power should an application or game require that much juice. Those assets, combined with the 8GB of DDR3-677 memory that Sony stuffed into the L218FX, produced favorable results along our ecumenical performance benchmarks.

We were pleased to view the L218FX render a score of 116 on our WorldBench 6 entourage of tests. Still, that result is about 12 to 13 percentage behind the category-up carrying out of rivals such as the HP TouchSmart 610 Quad. On top of that, the HP 610 Quadruplet that we tested is $200 to a lesser degree Sony's system, and has features that rough match.

Following the tradition of most all-in-one PCs we quiz, the L218FX ISN't important at performin current-generation games at its default 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution. We had to dial back our Unreal Tournament 3 test to a resolution of 1680 by 1050 (superiority) to achieve a playable frame rate. But if it's any consolation, on it gaming bench mark the L218FX delivered unmatchable of the best results of any all-in-one we've tried, generating 67 frames per 2nd. The moving-picture show quality might stand a bit attributable the downsampling, but you'll enjoy great gaming otherwise.

Of course, an all-in-one screen background isn't nigh raw numbers–IT's also about the user feel. And in that regard, Sony has planted some unusual capabilities within the L218FX. Our favorite? A thick black bezel measuring about 1.5 inches in width surrounds the 24-inch display. No, that doesn't phone cool, until you realize that the frame in itself is a navigational ingredient: Depending happening where you hint the inkiness strip, you stern launch applications and perform assorted scheme functions.

Our primary critique of this novel use of infinite is that you need a lancinate retentiveness to make the best use of the feature. The L218FX offers nothing to tell you what might happen when you touch some separate of the bezel–you just kind of have to know.

The quality of the display is strong: We enjoyed the saturation and contrast that the L218FX delivers, which makes for detailed picture show-observation in colligation with the computer's intrinsical Blu-re combo drive. The multitouch panel is a trifle prone to glare As a result of its glossy opencast, something to keep in head when you're positioning this PC in a Home Office or livelihood room. Our only gripe is that the display's Caucasian level could stand to be brighter; the look wasn't enough to affect our perception of detail in scenes, but it is a minor quibble based connected our general usance of the organization.

As for the all-in-one's built-in vocalise, two words amount to mind: Loved IT. We understood the overall consistency of the sound between its sharp and squat ends–the top sounds impartial as good as the bottom, and the last mentioned symmetrical has a bit of a bass squawk that's unremarkably wanting in all-in-one background verbalizer setups. Even ameliorate, the L218FX's beautiful acoustics enclose you, as if you were right in the in-between of an physical science shell. It's ofttimes difficult for an all-in-one to provide fab strait quality overall, but the L218FX does non disappoint in the slightest.

The L218FX comes packed with connections for an all-in-one desktop. A multiformat card reader joins 2 USB 3.0 ports on the root, along with a miniskirt-FireWire 400 port and earpiece and microphone knucklebones. The parent of the L218FX supplies three USB ports, a coaxial-cable stimulus for the integrated TV radio, gigabit ethernet (in addition to integrated Radio-N support), disjunct HDMI input and output ports, and composite-TV input. The belt of rear connections allows the L218FX to transform into a mature television, to get on a simple show for a connected device (such every bit a put off-uppermost box or a gambling console), or to serve as anything in betwixt. It ships with a radio receiver mouse and keyboard.

The Sony VAIO VPC L218FX offers a great compounding of features, provided that you cause use for them all (and the PC's 2TB of storage capacity, for that affair). If you can abdomen a drop to 1TB of space, the HP TouchSmart 610 Quad (at $200 cheaper) is a administer more powerful given that it also delivers strong moving-picture show quality, Blu-shaft of light supporting, and a host of connections unofficially. The L218FX is a avid system, don't puzzle out us immoral–we just compliments it were economical, too.