- Excellent Storage Capabilities
- Very Strong 3D Graphics
- Good Multimedia Functions
- Media Bay Only Allows DVD drive or TV Tuner To Work at a Given Time
- Intel Pentium M 760 (2GHz) Mobile Processor
- 1GB PC2-4200 DDR2 Memory
- Two 80GB 5400rpm Hard Drives
- 8x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
- 17" WXGA+ (1440x900) Wide Screen LCD Panel
- ATI Mobility X700 Graphics with 256MB Memory
- v.90 56Kbps Modem, Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g Wireless
- Three USB 2.0, One FireWire, MS/SD Slot and One Type II PC Card Slot
- 15.8" x 11.7" x 1.7" @ 8.8 lbs.
- Windows XP Media Center Edition, Works 8, Photoshop Elements, Roxio Digital Media SE, Quicken
1/26/06 – Powering the VAIO VGN-AX580G is the Intel Pentium M 760 (2GHz) mobile processor. This is a good mix between performance and battery life. It is matched up with 1GB of PC2-4200 DDR memory that lets you run most applications without any slowdowns.
Storage is very strong with the VGN-AX580G. The system uses two 80GB 5400rpm hard drives for a total of 160GB of storage space. This gives the system plenty of space for storing digital media files on the system. It also has an 8x DVD+/-RW dual layer burner allowing for the creation of music, movie and data DVD or CDs.
Graphics are very important for media centric notebooks. Like most desktop replacements, Sony has chosen to use their 17” wide screen LCD panel with a 1440x900 resolution. Driving the graphics is the ATI Mobility Radeon X700 with 256MB of memory. This is a very capable graphics card that allows the system to even do well at 3D gaming. It would have been nice to see Sony use a 1680x1050 LCD panel instead.
The system uses the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system. This is a good selection for Sony even with their very capable VAIO Media software suite. With the TV Tuner media bay, the system is very capable at multimedia. The only drawback is that the DVD drive can't be used when the TV Tuner resides in the media bay.
