Sony has another punt at all-in-one PC

Vaio J series gets touchy feely

Sony has announced that it's having another try at the all-in-one computer market which has always been dominated by Apple's iconic iMac.

The Japanese electronics superpower made a first foray into the discrete desktop sector with the Vaio L series back in late 2009, but the 24-incher was seen as slightly overpriced and the multi-touch software, which was still in its infancy, something of a gimmick.

Sony has decided to cut back on the screen size and some features, no doubt to keep the retail price down to a reasonable level, though as the company has yet to reveal the price, this remains to be seen.

The display is a 21.5-inch 1930 x 1080 multi-touch affair capable of showing video at full 1080p HD, and all of the PC's gubbins are stuffed inside the monitor's case.

That's be an Intel Core i3 2.26 GHz processor, 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, an Nvidia 310m GPU with 512MB of graphics memory, a DVD reader/writer, a Motion Eye webcam and both WiFi and Bluetooth.

Note the lack of a Blu-Ray drive and a TV tuner, both of which were standard on the L Series.

Judging from Sony's marketing materials, the company is pitching this as a kid-friendly, kitchen-based workstation. If that's the case, the price had better be right because no-one in their right mind is going to pay more than £500 for a secondary computer which will end up covered in chip fat and grubby kids' paw prints.

The L series started out at around £1,200... so we don't hold out too much hope.