Sony Vaios, are they worth it?

[Color me Dan]

Up untill a few days ago i had planned on buying a new TV, but funny how things can change... I got a mail from a school telling me they had decided at the last moment to let me in. Buisness before pleasure you all know, so instead i have decided to focus on a new laptop. My old P3 will probably give up the ghost in a few months at most anyway. It's making weird noises and bits are feeling loose.

Seeing as i'm a big fan of Sony products i was thinking about getting a Vaio. I've been looking at a AR VGN-41M which is avalible from their online store. Thing is, i don't really know much about other brands. To me Sony means value for money, and i don't really know about Asus, Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu, LG and the others. What other quality brands are out there that might be cheaper but comparable?

Thanks in advance people.

 

[Mize]

I've had two Sony laptops and, generally speaking, I found them overpriced and loaded with bloatware and 'phone home' apps. Very slick hardware designs though.

For my latest laptop I did an hp/compaq "business" model with virtually no bloatware and no phone home apps. Decent buy.

 

[ShaidarHaran]

VAIOs suck from a repair perspective. If it ever breaks and you want to fix it out of warranty, you may as well just bend over. $350 optical drives and $1000 motherboards are the norm in VAIO land.

Do yourself a favor and buy a Dell and get the accidental damage coverage with it. They may not be the sexiest laptops on the planet, but they get the job done and the warranty is unbeatable.

 

[Chunkymonkey153]

A fairly unheard of brand known as Portable One has caught my eye as of late. The Portable One's are well assembled you can make them very powerful for cheap, and they are designed with upgrade ability in mind. From what I've seen of them they are extremely durable I don't know how many times my friend has dropped his. When I comparison shopped they where hundreds of dollars cheaper than an inferior dell or most other brands. I found that a 2,600$ potable one had far more impressive specs than a 3,300$ hp or a 3,600$ Dell. Bang for the buck can't be beat, build quality is about as solid as say a think pad but feels a bit more substantial and has a full size keyboard.

 

[Chunkymonkey153]

Oh and if your not looking at high end pc's their cheap ones are just as cheap as the big names and still better!

 

[Zaphod]

A fairly unheard of brand known as Portable One [...]

Be vary of drawing general conclusions from experience with any particular model from a 'home brand' (i.e. smaller whitebook integrators). Their systems are drawn from a variety of manufacturers, and as such tend to defy any relevant cross-model inferences. Rather, you should figure out who's the ODM for the whitebook (on which the model you like is based) and work from there. It's bound to be available from dozens and dozens of similar vendors of various sizes, from Sager and downward. Although it's possible to screw up assembling a notebook chassis; it's pretty hard, so buying from a whitebook builder should be based on quality of service, price, and virtually everything else that does not in any way relating to "they" having good notebooks in general.

 

[Mize]

VAIOs suck from a repair perspective. If it ever breaks and you want to fix it out of warranty, you may as well just bend over. $350 optical drives and $1000 motherboards are the norm in VAIO land.

Do yourself a favor and buy a Dell and get the accidental damage coverage with it. They may not be the sexiest laptops on the planet, but they get the job done and the warranty is unbeatable.

buy from a place with a 3 year next day on site. Newegg has such for reasonable prices.

 

[Color me Dan]

Since i live in Sweden i don't think Newegg would be a good choice for me, import would be prohibitably expensive. Damn Swedish import taxes... *grumble*

What i'm searching for is hardware that get support even years after i've bought it. This is my biggest concern since the p3 i have now has stuff in it from companies that doesn't exist anymore. And also i'm kinda keen on the memory card slot, do alot of computers come with those besides Sony? Do they have some kind of 4-1 card slots?

I own a couple of other Sony products so interoperability is a key thing as well. Should i ditch the Vaio idea and go for a Macbook?

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

I have had many Sony notebooks come my way for repairs because there not reliable. Sony has some quality control problems for the last 5 years now so I wouldn't buy a Sony product. If your going to spend that much then go for a barebone notebook and build what you want.

MSI makes good barebone notebooks and heres a link for more information. A barebone notebook is a notebook that is missing the CPU, hard drive, ram, and wireless card so you can put what you want in it and is very easy to install the part with removable panels on the bottom of the notebook.

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=prodpage2&maincat_no=135&cat2_no=271

 

[ERP]

Viao's are alright, the screens are usually stellar, the rest of the hardware OK. Batteries and other accessories horribly over priced and they come full of Bloat ware. Expect to spend hours removing unwanted trial versions and other weird software which is slowing the machine to a crawl before getting the machine you expect.

On my first Viao I eventually gave up on the uninstalling software thing and just bought a second copy of XP to install instead of the Sony OEM one. Using the Sony discs only for the drivers.

Currently having owned IBM's, Dells, Viao's, HP's and Toshiiba Portables, I'd buy another IBM/Lenova without a second thought, and I wouldn't do the same for most of the others. Although I've been looking for an ultraportable and Lenova don't have anything in the 3.0lb category and I do like the look of the new Sony TZ's.

 

[Mize]

Since i live in Sweden i don't think Newegg would be a good choice for me, import would be prohibitably expensive. Damn Swedish import taxes... *grumble*

What i'm searching for is hardware that get support even years after i've bought it. This is my biggest concern since the p3 i have now has stuff in it from companies that doesn't exist anymore. And also i'm kinda keen on the memory card slot, do alot of computers come with those besides Sony? Do they have some kind of 4-1 card slots?

I own a couple of other Sony products so interoperability is a key thing as well. Should i ditch the Vaio idea and go for a Macbook?

I had a Vaio that had its LCD LED die (backlight) and I didn't have the on-site...took 8 weeks to get it fixed.

In the EU I highly recommend Fujitsu-Siemens. Very good support and extremely low warranty failure rate. I have five Fujitsus in the company running on year 4 (not Siemens here in the US) and never had a single problem. I'm sure they have on-site in the EU too.

 

[Mize]

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.se/shopguide/index.html

The ones we have are all lifebooks.

 

[Zaphod]

In the EU I highly recommend Fujitsu-Siemens. Very good support and extremely low warranty failure rate. I have five Fujitsus in the company running on year 4 (not Siemens here in the US) and never had a single problem.

Heh. Talk about suggesting the diametrically opposite to the notebook brand that is the topic of the thread. Every business-line Fujitsu-Siemens lappy I have seen over the past couple of years have been so unexciting that my Webster's illustrated dictionary have picture of one next to the definition of 'bland'. That's probably also why they just work, provide excellent value, and aren't bloated down with crap, though. I've only ever heard positive things about them in a corporate environment.

 

[Color me Dan]

I'll be using the laptop mostly for multimedia apps like Sony Vegas (video editing) and Adobe stuff. That's why i've been thinking about a Macbook as well, but the screen size is so goddamn tiny. Looks as if price is dictated by screensize if you don't look hard enough. 13'3 to 15'~ was like 800$ extra, i was "WTF" untill i read the slight spec increase.

Another reason i leaned against Vaios was the x-black, better color reproduction means i can edit with more exact colors. Kinda important, not a complete dealbreaker. Dunno any other companies who has anything similer. When i get into something it's hard to shake, so i might sound like i'm not gonna change my mind but i'm VERY open to suggestions like the above. And muchas greatfull.

 

[Zaphod]

Another reason i leaned against Vaios was the x-black, better color reproduction means i can edit with more exact colors.

Don't put too much weight to those marketing terms when deciding of a notebook. If color representation is really important to you, I'd look up on of the larger notebook forums and ask specifically for information on particular models that work well with calibrated colors from users who do the same kind of work you do. And even then you're not certain because most models tend to be qualified for 2-3 different panels (or more), often of different manufacture to ensure a stable supply of parts.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

I'll be using the laptop mostly for multimedia apps like Sony Vegas (video editing) and Adobe stuff. That's why i've been thinking about a Macbook as well, but the screen size is so goddamn tiny. Looks as if price is dictated by screensize if you don't look hard enough. 13'3 to 15'~ was like 800$ extra, i was "WTF" untill i read the slight spec increase.

Another reason i leaned against Vaios was the x-black, better color reproduction means i can edit with more exact colors. Kinda important, not a complete dealbreaker. Dunno any other companies who has anything similer. When i get into something it's hard to shake, so i might sound like i'm not gonna change my mind but i'm VERY open to suggestions like the above. And muchas greatfull.

What I listed uses a 17" LCD screen and for color If I remember right the LCD can have a max color of 18bit. You might be able to set 32bit color in the video cards control setting but the LCD screen will only show 18bit. If you want the best color you need a good CRT still.

 

[nutball]

You might be able to set 32bit color in the video cards control setting but the LCD screen will only show 18bit. If you want the best color you need a good CRT still.

Unless you're on a boutique system then setting the video card to 32-bit colour with a CRT won't give you 32-bit colour either, it'll give you 24-bit colour.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

Unless you're on a boutique system then setting the video card to 32-bit colour with a CRT won't give you 32-bit colour either, it'll give you 24-bit colour.

True but its much better then 18 bit that your stuck with using LCD. The advantage with the LCD is larger screen size, lower power usage, and smaller and lighter then CRTs. When it comes to image and color the CRT has the lead there. One thing I would love to see come out is a DLP monitor and it might be possible soon. I know TI has been doing research for over a year and a half on using lasser LEDs for a light source that will lower the power and heat and very important space needed for the DLP unit because the need for a color wheel will be gone with the uses of 3 laser LEDs red, green, and blue.

 

[Mize]

Heh. Talk about suggesting the diametrically opposite to the notebook brand that is the topic of the thread. Every business-line Fujitsu-Siemens lappy I have seen over the past couple of years have been so unexciting that my Webster's illustrated dictionary have picture of one next to the definition of 'bland'. That's probably also why they just work, provide excellent value, and aren't bloated down with crap, though. I've only ever heard positive things about them in a corporate environment.

Lowest warranty-failure rate in the business too (especially the made in Japan models).