Video buffs usually give a thumbs-down to low-end PCs with integrated graphics solutions, and the Vaio's SiS 730S setup is no exception -- well, a partial exception in that the chipset includes hardware acceleration for DVD playback, and watching movies with Sony's Media Bar DVD player was smooth and enjoyable. The subwooferless stereo speakers are predictably small and tinny, but adequate -- although so light that the right-hand speaker simply slides away from you when you try to push its power button.

The graphics controller falls to a flickery 60Hz refresh rate at its maximum 1,280 by 1,024 resolution, but delivered a bright, attractive, 85Hz display in 16- or 32-bit color at 1,024 by 768. Overall, the system felt reasonably perky for most tasks (like launching programs), though awfully sluggish for some (like opening folders in MovieShaker).

Start talking benchmark numbers, though, and the Vaio's frugal design takes its toll. When we reviewed Dell's Inspiron 2500, an economy notebook using Intel's 815EM chipset, we wrote, "Serious gamers and first-person shooter studs will look down their noses at any 815EM system" -- but the Inspiron, despite a slower 700MHz Pentium III CPU, is twice as fast as the J200 in Quake III Arena, where the Vaio ambled along at 18.2 frames per second (fps) in normal 640 by 480 mode and a stop-motion 9.5 fps in high-quality 800 by 600.

For a far-from-state-of-the-art comparison, the Hardware Central Home Mule -- an Athlon/750 with a two-year-old Nvidia TNT2 M64 card -- triples those scores. Clearly, if you want to play games, Sony will be glad to sell you a PlayStation, but if you buy the kids a J200 for even occasional gameplay, they'll be disappointed.

Similarly, we expected a Duron/900 system to do better on our formal BAPco SysMark 2001 benchmarks, where a Pentium III/800 with a GeForce2 card posts the baseline score of 100 -- but the Vaio crossed the line with a weak overall rating of 62, trailing the abovementioned Inspiron laptop's 70.

For the record, the Sony scored a tolerable 71 on the Office Productivity portion of SysMark (which simulates a Microsoft Office work session), despite having only 112MB of memory to work with. But on the Internet Content Creation half (which combines Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver, and other image, video, and HTML applications) it fizzled with a 55. For the most part, the J200 makes us want to steer clear of any SiS 730S-based computer for any tasks except word processing and Web surfing.

That's a shame, since the Vaio's preinstalled software is ready for more. Instead of Microsoft Works or Office, the system comes with the previous-edition-but-still-superpowered Corel WordPerfect 9 word processor and Quattro Pro 9 spreadsheet, as well as McAfee VirusScan, Adaptec's DirectCD and Easy CD Creator for the CD-RW half of the combo drive, and Adobe PhotoDeluxe Home Edition and ArcSoft Photo Printer 2000 for editing and publishing images.

Casual users, however, will like the attractive, Sony-exclusive software, which ranges from sunny Active Desktop wallpaper (that changes itself three times a day) to Media Bar and OpenMG Jukebox, which outshine Windows Media Player for audio files as well as DVDs, and the weird but pretty VisualFlow, which lets you whirl through images from a digital camera in half-organizer, half-kaleidoscope fashion.

And, though Sony's Web site offers buyers the potent Adobe Premiere 6.0 for $149, they can have hours of fun with MovieShaker, which makes it easy to arrange home-video clips, transitions, images, text, and effects in a dozen entertaining ways -- or, for the laziest producers or youngest kids, let the program mix clips into a random movie for export as a QuickTime file or e-mail attachment. Its jazzy interface requires some studying of help screens, but it beats Windows Me's Movie Maker up, down, and sideways.

All in all, we think the Sony PCV-J200 shakes out thusly:

Pros:

• DVD, CD-RW, Ethernet, and 1394 make it a tempting bargain
• Nifty software for digital camera and home video buffs
• Did we mention it was a bargain?

Cons:

• Downsized, subpar keyboard
• Next-to-no expandability
• Cheap chipset makes Duron/900 perform more like a Celeron/700; unplayably slow for 3D games

In short, it's a solid choice as a second or third PC, but you get what you pay for -- and we think Sony pinched a few too many pennies elsewhere (no front-mounted ports? no AGP slot?) for the sake of the combo drive and other frills. We often complain that products cost too much, but in this case, we'd rather pay $1,000 for a system that fits the classy Vaio image than $800 for one that doesn't.