The Sony VAIO VGX-TP25E ($3,000 direct) is a pricey Digital Entertainment System (DES) or home theater PC with a unique and attractive design. It's meant to sit in your theater cabinet next to the widescreen HDTV. As a home-theater system, it drops some features common to desktop PCs yet adds others that acclimate it to the living-room environment. Though it isn't perfect, the TP25E is a really good fit for the PC you want to hook up to the 65-inch plasma. The TP25E is "mostly wireless," which cuts down on the visual clutter, but there is a big caveat to that statement (read on, dear reader). Blu-ray and a new Penryn-based processor are tech highlights. If you have the means (and the desire), the TP25E is a good choice for the HD-consuming connoisseur.

The TP25E looks more like a fancy clock radio or piece of Bang & Olufsen audio equipment than your usual boxy PC. It is a lot more distinct than the A/V-style systems such as the Velocity Micro CineMagix Grand Theater or the TP25E's predecessor, the VAIO VGX-XL3. It's basically a black cylinder, roughly 5 inches tall and 16 inches wide that looks like a giant hockey puck with a PC built into it. There are cheaper versions with internal TV tuners, but the top-of-the-line TP25E comes with two external digital cable tuners instead.

These are the same CableCARD-compatible ATI Wonder TV Digital Cable Tuners that we've seen on other DES PCs. The external digital tuners do detract somewhat from the TP25E's svelte lines, but so far ATI's CableCARD readers are the only game in town if you want to record or view premium cable channels on your PC. It's important to note that while we weren't able to test these tuners, we have in the past tested identical tuners that came with other digital entertainment systems. Let's just say that it's a crapshoot as to whether or not the tuners will actually work for you. It all depends on your location, your cable company, how the planets are aligned, and so forth.

The TP25E has impressive PC specs, including a 2.1-GHz Core 2 Duo T8100 processor using Intel's new 45-nm Penryn core, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a Blu-ray reader. Add to that wireless LAN (802.11b/g), a wireless keyboard with a built-in touchpad, a hidden card reader, and all the connectors you'd need to hook the TP25E up to your HDTV and A/V receiver surround-sound setup. Understandably, there's no internal expansion to speak of, but there are four USB ports (two used by the tuners), a 4-pin FireWire/i.LINK port, and a digital card reader that accepts the various flavors of Memory Stick and SD cards. The system's graphics card is a 256MB nVidia GeForce 8400M GT, a part normally found in laptops. Its inclusion is understandable because of the TP25E's small case. The GeForce 8400M GT is certainly capable of Aero effects and light 3D duties.

The system is so HDTV-oriented that it lacks a DVI port. HDMI and VGA are the only video outputs. (Sony does bundle in a DVI-to-HDMI adapter for early adopters who lack a HDMI port on their digital TV). Of course, since the rig is HDMI-oriented, it supports HDCP—so make sure your monitor or TV does, too. Otherwise, Blu-ray movies will play at a lower resolution than the intended 1080p, if at all. A headphone jack and an S/PDIF (digital optical) jack let you connect to an external audio output like an A/V receiver or a set of powered speakers. Again, aside from the big honking CableCARD readers—which aren't Sony's fault—the TP25E will fit into just about any home-theater setup. The TP25E is extremely quiet, which is important for a Digital Entertainment System or Home Theater PC (HTPC)—you don't want to hear fan or hard drive noise when you're trying to pay attention to the actors' dialogue. I had to put my ear right up against the case to hear the inner workings like the Blu-ray drive or the hard drive.

One of the few nits I have with the TP25E is the Blu-ray drive's loading mechanism. The Blu-ray reader, which also reads/burns CDs and DVDs, is a tray-loading, notebook-class drive. The problem is that you have to lift your disc on and off a spindle in the pop-out tray. This is unlike the simple tray in a DVD player, or (better yet) a slot-loading player like the one in Sony's LT-series all-in-one desktops. While this may seem a minor nit, the pop-on/pop-off motion may cause you to scratch your precious DVDs or Blu-ray discs in a darkened room. Worse, if your TP25E is mounted low, a toddler running nearby could hit it and damage it. A slot-loading Blu-ray drive is both better looking and makes more sense. One possible plus is that the tray-loading drive will accept those rare, weird shaped CDs, like the ones shaped like hearts or ovals instead of the usual 120mm circle.

I love the fact that the system comes with a wireless keyboard with built-in touchpad. While I still like the Dell XPS One's keyboard a little better for its inclusion of MCE transport controls and MCE's green button, the Sony's is more compact and fits best on your lap. The system's MCE remote is a generic one, but at least the IR sensor is built into the TP25E's chassis. You can add an optional external IR receiver if you need to put the TP25E into a closed cabinet.

The TP25E is a good multimedia performer. It completed our Photoshop CS3 test in 36 seconds and our Windows Media Encoder test in 1 minute 24 seconds. The system's dual-core Penryn processor and 4GB of memory are responsible for the its speedy performance. The TP25E is fast enough to let you do photo editing on your HDTV (things like cropping and red-eye removal), as well as more advanced photo tasks like retouching and running portions of pictures through filters. It will certainly be able to transcode videos from one format to another (like downloaded DiVX, or transcode recorded TV for use on a Zune or other device). Its GeForce 8400M GT is enough for Vista's Aero effects, though you probably will want to run Crysis on another PC. The TP25E gets the HD-consumption job done.

The TP25E is an energy-efficient system, as befits its compact size. It consumes a miserly 33 watts in idle mode and only 2W in sleep mode, and it uses around 50W when you flog the processor. This compares well with standard multimedia desktop PCs, which idle at over 100W. The TP25E goes to sleep fairly quickly after you leave it idle, which makes sense for a PC hooked up to a TV, and it will save you a few bucks a month in energy costs, and as we all know these pennies add up.

The VAIO TP25E exists in a specialized niche: the pricey, fully laden home-theater PC. Only a few companies still compete in this space, now that HP is letting its stocks of Digital Entertainment Center z565 units languish on its e-commerce site. Niveus Media's Rainier media center and its follow-ups still grace their Web site. Alternatives such as the Dell XPS One and the Gateway One are really designed for use with their own built-in screens rather than external ones. Velocity Micro's CineMagix media centers are an option, but they are huge compared with the slender TP25E. Just about the only competition for the TP25E comes from Sony's other HTPC system, the TP20E, which starts at $1,600 but has 2GB of RAM compared with the TP25E's 4GB, and eschews the TP25E's dual cable tuners for an integrated ATSC/NTSC over-the-air tuner. Not a bad trade-off, particularly for a $1,400 savings, but for most people the point of these systems is to have all the toys.

Though still not perfect because of the clunky external tuners (ATI, are you listening?), the Sony VAOI VGX-TP25E nevertheless represents the gold standard of digital entertainment systems today. The TP25E is a little pricey due to the twin CableCARD-reading tuners, but there is a cheaper alternative in the TP20E, which is virtually identical sans CableCARD ability and less system memory. Yet since I applaud Sony for integrating the latest technology (Penryn processor, CableCARD tuners, Blu-ray) into a compact, energy-efficient, and attractive box, the TP25E gets our Editors' Choice in the category of digital entertainment systems.

Check out the Sony VAIO VGX-TP25E's test scores.

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