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"Great value now that Sony's worked out the kinks" on by tmusgrove
Pros: Affordable Blu-ray system, novel way to easily access slots
Cons: Software update required to get Blu-ray stable
Summary: I think those who previously gave this unit a low rating probably bought it when it first came out, when the 3rd party software for the Blu-ray was still buggy.
I bought one just now (March 2007) at Fry's for $1600, and after updating the video card driver and the WinDVD from Sony's site (only one minute for each download over my DSL), the Blu-ray worked fine.
Other reviewers also may not have been aware of a limitation of Blu-ray that Sony has no control over, which is that the encryption on Blu-ray discs will stop a disc from playing over a DVI connected monitor unless it finds the HDCP decryption protocol on the monitor that is plugged in. In other words, there's a good chance your existing LCD monitor with a DVI connector will not allow Blu-ray to play from any Blu-ray device, as only a very few LCD monitors today have HDCP built in.
Your work-around, if your monitor has a VGA connector (almost all of them do), is to attach a DVI-to-VGA dongle to the PC and use a VGA cable to the monitor. The Blu-ray will then play on your monitor with a slight decrease in quality (still a much nicer picture than standard DVD video).
Besides that my family is enjoying the Blu-ray, another nice feature of this Sony PC is that the silver square panel on the front (see the picture) has a section that pops right off with a quick press of your thumb, allowing you to add up to three additional hard drives without having to open the whole case. Very nice design. -
"Loads of frustration. Not one thing went smooth or was slick about this PC." on by Xirtic88
Pros: Fairly quiet
Cons: No documentation, Terrible support, lockups during installs, too much pre-loaded junk
Summary: Paid over $2,200, spent two days of frustration trying to get everything to work properly. Never even got to the point of using many of its features, including the Blu-Ray technology. I gave up and boxed it back up and am returning it to the store. Save your cash and at least wait until Christmas 2006 to buy Blu-Ray.
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"Never again....never" on by black_hatter
Pros: blu-ray burner, nice processor, Logitech speaker system
Cons: 2 GB maximum for RAM, proprietary Sony software, could use better RAM, not enough expandability
Summary: I originally bought a Vaio RB44G (first mistake) at Best Buy on clearance for $589 when my 6 year old Dell Dimension died. It had a bad hard drive after 2 months which was replaced by Sony onsite tecnicians. Then, right before the original 1 year warranty was over, the troubles began. There was a heat problem in the computer which killed the hard drive, heatsink, and RAM. Sony onsite support replaced all of these parts twice, but to no avail. After sending this computer to California 5 times, they finally decided to replace it. So they sent me a damaged RB62G, which I promptly sent back. Due to the number of problems I was having, and having been without a working computer for almost 5 months, Sony decided to send me a brand new RC310G. I thought this was great and was finally excited to have a computer that would work. I took it out of the box and hooked it up, and everything was running smoothly. Then, I had to restore it using the created recovery DVDs. This led to Windows errors every time I turned the computer on and OS corruption. I informed Sony and they sent me a set of recovery DVDs. These had the same problem. Now, I am sitting here waiting for them to send me a new hard drive because after 3 months of having this new computer, the hard drive has already died. I am done with Sony and their computers. I think I'm going to put Crucial Ballistix RAM and a better video card in this computer. After all, since Sony can't build a new computer, I have to do it for them. If you do decide to buy this computer, replace the hard drive like I am doing with a 150 GB Raptor X
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"Mis-Leading" on by Phil Anderson
Pros: ???????????????????
Cons: Everything, Everything
Summary: Not only will you have problems getting Blu-Ray to play on the PC, but they claim this PC is HDCP compliant. Well this is not true. There is not currently a HDCP compliant card readily available for purchase period. The GPU is HDCP ready by nVidia, but the board is not HDCP compliant. So there for when you hook this beast up to a, say, 57" samsung lcd tv, it completely overscans, and will not run 1980x1080 resolution, so therefore is doesn't run the Blu-Ray disc either. So do not waste your time and money on this pile until it is truly HDCP compliant, so it can serve a purpose as a true media center pc, that will have no problems integrating with a large screen tv.
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"Great CPU if you can find it!" on by unknownCAguy
Pros: Everything
Cons: Could have supported up to 4GB memory capacity, would have made this model a benchmarking machine for years to come.
Summary: Great computer. I purchased this back in Dec. 2007 and upgraded the storage to 1TB and the GPU to a nVidia 9600GT, also changed the OS to Windows Vista Ultimate. Runs smoothly and the bad reviews you see here are from either losers who don't know how to and shouldn't be allowed to purchase a computer (maybe a Commodore is a good CPU for them lol), or they are Apple, or MS HD-DVD fanboys. The burning speeds on here are fast imo when you consider you are burning 20GB to a disc. Media price will drop drastically soon since Blu-Ray has eclusivity and has won the format war.
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