Sony’s VAIO L-series computers boast plenty of sex appeal, and this particular model boasts a 24-inch screen that’s one inch larger than the rest of the field (albeit with the same wide-screen resolution of 1920x1080). It’s not just a pretty face, either; its benchmark performance puts it a close second to the edgy-looking Lenovo. The VAIO’s $2,000 MSRP, however, renders it $600 more expensive than that machine, $320 pricier than HP’s TouchSmart 600 Quad, and more than twice as costly as MSI’s budget-friendly offering.

Sony tapped the same midrange desktop CPU that Lenovo did, Intel’s 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad 8400S, and paired it with an Intel P43 chipset and 6GB of DDR2/800 memory on a proprietary motherboard. Nvidia’s discrete mobile GeForce GT 240M GPU, with 1GB of dedicated memory, handles graphics duties. Sony’s VAIO Media Gallery makes good use of the touch-screen display, enabling you to produce slide shows and movies by dragging thumbnail images around with your fingertips. But Sony’s touch-screen software is much less comprehensive than HP’s offering.

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If we asked you to name three boutique PC vendors, we’re pretty sure that Origin PC wouldn’t make your list. Hell, you’ve probably never even heard the name Origin PC.

But that’s to be expected. The company has only been selling PCs since November. That’s not a lot of time to jump into a game dominated by the likes of Falcon Northwest, Digital Storm, and Maingear.

Origin PC isn’t just a typical startup, though. The three founders of the company are ex-patriots of one of the oldest names in gaming PCs: Alienware. That’s the old Alienware, too, before it was sucked into the Dell mothership and relocated to Austin, Texas.

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