Sony SVJ20215CXW Pro Reviews

The Sony VAIO Tap 20 is an awesome hybrid mobile device for Windows 8 that brings the touch experience to life, but an old school 5400RPM hard drive that was first released in 2010 makes the Tap 20 sluggish.

This isn't the first all-in-one design with a touch screen and it isn't even the first one with a small embedded battery for slight mobile use but it is one of the first in a new generation of products enabled by Intel's Ivy Bridge architecture and with performance capability to appease most users in 2013. With what is essentially the same hardware that you would find inside of a Ultrabook laptop computer the Sony VAIO Tap 20 is able to keep up with Windows 8 without issue while powering a decent quality 1600x900 20-in display. Performance was fantastic in general usage scenarios and the inclusion of the battery does make the Tap 20 more appealing for home integration with the ability to move from room to room for short periods of time without having to drag around a power cable. Starting at $879, the Sony VAIO Tap 20 would make a great computer for a family or office space that needs multi-user interaction full, or part time.

A battery-powered all-in-one? Sony scores for originality but the benefits are marginal

Sony succesfully splices tablet and all-in-one DNA to create this ingenious hybrid

The Tap 20 is an unusual product. It's relatively underpowered as a desktop system, but its strong suit is as a shared family PC, with the ability to be moved easily around the home. And its potential as a shared gaming device is impressive. Unfortunately, it isn't as strong on the productivity side, and the lack of MPEG-2 playback--more a Windows 8 problem than Sony's--makes it an imperfect entertainment system. In many ways, the Tap 20 showcases both the good and the bad of Windows 8. Its seamless integration with the Windows 8 user interface shows off Microsoft's new operating system at its best, but the lack of capabilities that users have come to expect, such as MPEG-2 playback, is oddly jarring. When you use this machine with Windows 8 native apps, it excels, but the uninspired keyboard and mouse make desktop use more of a chore than it needs to be. The Tap 20 is undeniably cool, but some of the details need to be fleshed out. Still, at about £1,000 it's not all that expensive, particularly if you consider that it's both a small all-in-one and a really big tablet.

The Sony VAIO Tap 20 is an all-in-one touch-screen desktop with an integrated battery. You can move it the house without shutting down, so you can enjoy large screen computing in more than just one room.

The Tap 20 is an unusual product. It's relatively underpowered as a desktop system, but its strong suit is as a shared family PC, with the ability to be moved easily around the home. And its potential as a shared gaming device is impressive. Unfortunately, it isn't as strong on the productivity side, and the lack of MPEG-2 playback—more a Windows 8 problem than Sony's—makes it an imperfect entertainment system. In many ways, the Tap 20 showcases both the good and the bad of Windows 8. Its seamless integration with the Windows 8 user interface shows off Microsoft's new operating system at its best, but the lack of capabilities that users have come to expect, such as MPEG-2 playback, is oddly jarring. When you use this machine with Windows 8 native apps, it excels, but the uninspired keyboard and mouse make desktop use more of a chore than it needs to be. The Tap 20 is undeniably cool, but some of the details need to be fleshed out. Still, at about $880, it's not all that expensive, particularly if you consider that it's both a small all-in-one and a really big tablet.

I'm not sure about the level of demand for large, mobile touch-screen PCs, but a Lenovo product manager told me that his company is working on a design similar to the Vaio Tap 20. If that Lenovo product emerges, it suggests that Sony isn't the only vendor that sees some value in these hybrid desktop-tablet waters. If there is demand, one has to ask: if you can build an ultrabook with a long-lasting battery, a fast CPU, and a high-resolution screen, why not a desktop equivalent that's sleeker than Sony's design? Which is not to say that the Vaio Tap 20 is unattractive or that its design is flawed. Sony's rounded plastic chassis practically invites you to grab it, and it's sturdy enough that you feel confident lifting it up and and moving it around. This PC is also fast enough, and generally capable enough that I can recommend the Vaio Tap 20 to those who are willing to experiment with its unique mobile possibilities. If this concept does catch on, it's tempting to explore how it might improve. It's almost as if this battery-equipped all-in-one desktop is showing that the PC industry still has room for innovation.

Because of its unusual tablet/AIO design, the Sony VAIO Tap 20 is the first desktop PC we can recall in living memory that required us to run a battery-endurance test. We ran our standard video-rundown test on the Tap 20, continually playing an MP4 file until the fully charged machine conked out. It lasted 1 hour and 43 minutes. We don’t have much to compare the Tap 20 against from the battery aspect, apart from Sony’s own claim of 2 hours and 45 minutes of battery life. (It’s not fair to compare this machine with Android or Apple iPad tablets, which run much lower-powered CPUs and power much smaller screens and backlights.) We suspect you can get more than 2 hours in ordinary, less intense use of the Tap 20, seeing as our video test keeps the machine cranking for its whole length. It’s something of a worst-case usage scenario. But if you genuinely need a large-screen tablet for communal play, and Android is an option, note that Toshiba does offer the Excite 13, a decent 13-inch slate.