Are You Familiar with the New Tabletop PC?

Editor’s Note:  Congratulations to Shannon from Saint Petersburg, FL!  She won our PlayMG non-phone Smartphone giveaway!  Thanks everyone for participating.  Win lots more during our twitter party this week on Thursday, Nov. 9th at 10am PST.  We’re giving away over $1200 worth of gadgets & accessories!  You must RSVP first!

The All-in-One PC’s have been around now for awhile.  They offer nice touch screen displays and a smaller footprint than traditional PC’s, making them ideal to place in tight spaces.  But are you aware of the new Table Top PC’s that hit the market at the end of 2013?  From looking at them, you’d never know they are anything but an All-in-One PC.  In fact, they function just like an All-in-One PC.  But here are the characteristics that differentiate a Tabletop PC from a traditional All-in-One PC:

Tabletop PC’s are…

• Lighter in weight
• Portable – they have a built-in battery that last up to 2 hrs. without any power cord needed
• Wireless – all peripherals (keyboard and mouse) have no wires
• Flexible – the stand can be laid flat so the tabletop PC lies flat on a table…much like a tablet…a big one!
• Uniquely Playable – in the tabletop stance, up to 8 people can manipulate pictures or play games all at the same time!

We had the opportunity to play with the Sony Vaio Tap 21 Tabletop PC and I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised.  At first, I mistakenly took it as just another All-in-One PC.  Sure, it had terrific graphics, but I didn’t think much of it.  It has the 64-bit Windows 8 installed, which means it can be used as an extra large Windows tablet or in desktop mode as a normal PC.  But then I laid it down flat and discovered it was a Tabletop PC and my opinion of it instantly changed.

Sony VAIO Tap 21 Tabletop PC

Even as a All-in-One PC, the Sony VAIO Tap 21 as a lot of impressive features….

Features:

• 2 + hour built-in battery to make the PC portable
• Windows 8 – allows for tablet mode, PC mode, or tabletop mode
• Snap-back stand – allows you to easily adjust the position of the stand from upright all the way down to tabletop
• comes with either a 4th Intel Generation Core i5 or i7 processor (I reviewed the i7)
• included software: Sony’s Fingertapps touch organizer, a family calendar app, and a Sony Imagination Studio Vaio Edition software package (Movie Studio Platinum, Acid Music Studio, and Sound Forge Audio Studio)
• 21.5 ” 1920 x 1080 multi-touch display
• 8 GB RAM Memory
• 1 TB hard drive storage + 8 GB NAND Flash Cache
• built-in cam
• Easy sleep – no need to turn off the power, computer will restart in 2 seconds after pressing the power button or Windows Start button
• Near Field Communications (NFC) to wireless and instantly send pictures between your NFC phone and the VAIO Tap 21
• USB 3.0
• VAIO Care software – helps you identify problems, perform maintenance, and more
• One year toll-free technical assistance 24/7 included

There is so much I want to tell you about this great PC, it is hard to narrow it down.  Nonetheless, I am going to shorten it down to 3 main areas to go into further detail about these fun areas:  Entertainment, Gaming, and Work Life.

Entertainment

Fast.

The Sony VAIO Tap 21 Tabletop PC is the first i7 Intel processor I’ve had, and let me tell you, it’s fast.  You can play videos from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, VUDU or even your own home movies and the picture is fast and superior (as long as your WiFI is good) on it’s slick 1920x 1080 HD screen.  The picture and colors are absolutely gorgeous.  And because the Tap 21 is portable, you can move it to any room in the house to watch a movie.  Watch a movie in your daughter’s room, the kitchen, even outside!  With this portable PC, anything is possible!  And with a 2-3 hour battery charge, you can be cordless long enough to watch an entire movie!

NFC.

Another cool feature built-into this tabletop PC is the NFC feature.  If you’re not familiar with NFC, it’s a type of communication called Near Field Communication, that allows data to be passed between two NFC objects wirelessly.  The Samsung Galaxy 3, Galaxy 4, Note 2, and Note 3 all have NFC embedded in the phones.  In fact, a number of phones including BlackBerry, HTC, and more use NFC too.  For a list of phones/tablets with NFC built-in see this NFC Mobile List.

With NFC turned on in both devices, you can share photos, websites, and more between the two.  Say you take a great picture on your NFC Samsung Galaxy 3 phone, all you need to do is select the picture in your picture gallery and touch it to the back of the Vaio Tap 21

Disk Space.

Wtih 1 TB of space, there is a good amount of hard drive space to save movies, home movies, pictures, music, and documents on the Vaio Tap 21.  You do not need to worry about running out of disk space for quite a while.  And with 8 GB of Random Access Memory (RAM), you have plenty of working memory to create your own edited movies.

Software.

There are a lot of gaming options included on the  VAIO Tap 21.  Use your imagination to create slideshows, movies, and music to make custom creations.  All the software you need is built in with the Sony Imagination Studio VAIO Edition software package (Movie Studio Platinum, Acid Music Studio, and Sound Forge Audio Studio).  I have been wanting to teach my daughter how to create her own movies for awhile now and with the VAIO Tap 21, it’s never been easier.  I especially like the touch features of the programs – the way she’s used to working with programs, like on our tablet.

Gaming

 Xbox.

Because Microsoft owns Xbox, there is a Windows 8 tile for Games.  Clicking on this tile, you can sign in with your Xbox sign-on name (if you have one) and you can see all of your Xbox profile information, achievements you unlocked during games, and Xbox games available in the Windows Game Store.  I downloaded a few XBox apps from the Windows App Store for free like Uno & Friends and Solitaire.  In playing Uno, I used my Xbox profile character to play other Xbox players, only I used just the VAIO Tap 21, I didn’t need to turn on my Xbox.

You can even download the Xbox Smartglass app, to have your VAIO Tap 21 act as a second screen to your Xbox 360 console, providing control of movies, and behind-the scenes commentary, and real-time game strategy.

Tap 21 as a Monitor.

But get this!  I discovered that the Sony VAIO has a HDMI input too!  This means that you could plug in your HDMI game console (Xbox 360/Xbox One or PS3/PS4 or Wii U) into the HDMI port on this PC and you can now play your games in any room in the house…no more being tied down to the room that your TV is in.  This is really cool.  Have a teen room in your house or garage?  Move your VAIO there when your son/daughter has friends over.

Think of the possibilities!

Snowflake Suite.

The VAIO Tap 21 includes a trial version of a suite of games called Snowflake Suite.  They include a number of fun games to use in Tabletop mode like Air Hockey, Snowduku, a drum set, dual piano keyboards, drawing apps, and more.  These games works great in the Tabletop mode, where you lie the Tap 21 down so several people can play at once.

Work Life

Start – Tablet

As I mentioned earlier, because the VAIO Tap 21 has Windows 8 installed, you can also use it as a desktop computer and as a tablet…albeit a large one!  The default is set for tablet mode.  When you start the computer you see a screen like this:

Click on a tile to see your stocks, the weather, email, check your calendar, play games, view your pictures, watch Netflix, Skype, search the Internet, download apps from the Windows Store, etc.  Use it just like you would a tablet, only it’s 21.5 ” in size rather than 8″ or 10 in. in size.  The tablet mode works well for jumping right into a program with easy access.

Desktop

There is a tile in the tablet mode when you turn on your computer called “Desktop.”  If you click on this, you will be taken to the familiar desktop screen you are used to within the Windows operating system.  You can load computer programs on this screen like Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Quicken, Quickbooks, whatever programs you usually use on a computer.  You will spend most of your time in desktop mode if you work frequently on spreadsheets, documents, and on presentation slides.  Right now, my children are enjoying the Tabletop mode of the VAIO Tap 21, but as they grow older and have more assignments in class, they will be using the Desktop side more regularly.

The Sony VAIO Tap 21 with the Intel i7 processor is the one that I reviewed here, with it’s powerful graphics and quick processing power.  It retails for $1199.99 at Amazon.  You can also buy the VAIO Tap 21 with less features for $999.00 at Amazon.

A Mom’s Perspective

This Christmas, my husband and I decided that we were going to buy our kids a cheap desktop computer.  We like the benefits of a desktop computer rather than a laptop because they have a bigger screen, we could keep an eye more easily on what they are doing on their computer, and they are more stationary.  The thing that worried me, however, was that a traditional desktop computer, especially an inexpensive one, was that it does not have a touchscreen and touchscreen is my kids’ world.  That’s what they’ve grown up with in using our tablets in our home and I have no doubt touch will continue to reign in computing during their lifetime.

All-in-One’s are not cheap, they are typically in the $1000 range, but they support the discovery and convenience of touch.  And as you have seen, the new models like the Vaio Tap 21 can perform as a tablet and even as a tabletop PC as well, making it less personal and more social.  Teaching my children how to make and edit home movies will be so much easier for them to understand using touch than it would with a traditional computer and I love the fact that Sony includes a full suite of tools to help consumers make their own music and movies.  The Sony VAIO Tap 21 certainly has more than meets the eye.  With advanced features like NFC, USB 3.0, a HDMI port, and faster caching access to your hard drive, the Vaio Tap 21 will last a long time.  It’s a great PC, tablet, and Tabletop wrapped into one portable package.

Have you used a Tabletop computer before?  What are your favorite features?