Sony Vaio Laptops... Good?

Bennah

Bennah

Bennah

Soldato
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Basically, Im upgrading to a better laptop very soon.

After looking around, Im kinda leaning towards the Vaio N31.

C2D, 1GB, 120GB, Vista Premium and 15.4" X-Black display. Good enough for my needs, probs upgrade to 2GB but thats about it.

Im just wondering, how are the displays on these and other Sony Vaio's?

How are the build quality of these too? Regarded as pretty decent?

Thanks
 
Well Ive got an Acer now, not the best in the world but its ok.

The Vaio's atm, if you look in the correct places are very well priced for the spec. Might not be the cheapest of them all but they are very good though.
 
I was looking a purchasing a Vaio a few days ago but decided to go for the Dell Vostro.

The Sony Vaio spec was pretty similar but it had an inferior graphics chip (8400M GT v the Dell's 8600GT) and a smaller capacity HD (120GB v 160GB), yet it was still £150 more expensive than the superior spec Vostro.

Sure, the Sony was a bit more lighter, thinner and weighed a bit less than the Vostro. But with a £150 difference it didn't bother me in the slightest.

The Sony model was the Sony VAIO FZ11L.
 
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At the moment I have a 2.5kg paperweight, known in some circles as a VGN-FS215Z.

After it went wrong (my fault) i did some searching and Vaio's do seem to have their issues where reliablity is concerned.
 
2Thumbs said:
At the moment I have a 2.5kg paperweight, known in some circles as a VGN-FS215Z.

After it went wrong (my fault) i did some searching and Vaio's do seem to have their issues where reliablity is concerned.
Click to expand...

yep that pretty much is what i've noticed / heard
 
had my vaio at least 5 yrs , "touches wood" and nothing has gone wrong with it !
in fact the only time its been apart is to upgrade the ram. i have repaired many laptops ,and most makes, and i find the sonys to be better quality all round, thats why i purchased one.
hope this helps m8 :D
 
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We have standardised on Sony at work for our laptops.
As I type this I'd say I've got in the region of 25 out in the field so to speak at various levels - CEO, managers, sales team and engineers.

Reliability has been good with only one line which had a major issue.
It's a product line you will not encounter (The S1) however every single one the S1 models we owned went back with the same graphics problem.
Still not entirely sure if it was the screen or the graphics chipset - however towards the end Sony were doing out of warranty repairs on that model for free, so they obviously knew about it.

Specifications are good and some of the pricing these days isn't too bad.
The Sony's have always looked good but boy did you used to pay for those looks.
These days Sony seem to still be a little more expensive than the same specification from another manufacturer but the looks make up for that (important for our CEO, Managers and Sales team as image is as important as what it is they are doing).

We've been standard on Sony since I joined the company 7 years ago and despite that S1 line I wouldn't say they have been any less reliable than any other make I've dealt with in the past.
Oh - don't buy the official memory upgrades "made by Sony" where possible as you will be over charged.
"A division of Micron" is where we always go for ours.
Unless it is an extremely new product line from Sony then they have almost certainly got a validated upgrade module for you to buy.
 
Had a couple and never had a problem, they have an excellent build quality and worth the money. Used dells and hp's in work and they are not as good, although decent. Also as for the Acers a lot of people in work got them cheap last year and almost all of them have been sent back for screen and power pack issues. (not the same model)Which brings me onto the service from acer. Its exceptionally bad! Dell and sony have good service and I would personally only get those.
 
I've got to say I love my Vaio, ok it is a bit on the chunky side and a little bit heavy but the build quality is good and it's proved reliable over the last three years (touch wood) It's like anything in this world you get what you pay for.

A friend just got a Dell for his daughter and to be honest I wasn't impressed by the build quality it seemed cheap and nasty, I suppose you pays your money and takes your choice.

doggo
 
It depends which Vaio model/laptop you go for. Some of the models are the absolute best in their categories (or even own them!). With Vaio you also pay for stuff like having newer technologies first. Its a mistake to just buy a laptop based on CPU speed, Memory etc alone. Vaio use the latest materials, motherboard 'ideas' and tech like LED lit screens before anyone else even hear about them. Thats what you pay for. This is also why Vaio have some of the lightest, smallest and well designed laptops in the industry. :)

Obviously avoid the models that are cheap student type ones that just focus on numbers rather than build quality etc. They dont have the japanese motherboards or good parts. But they are priced as such.
 
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I've played with 2 Sony Vaios but they're like really old models with the old Pentiums in there and they were notorious for heat problems. The fan would always run at full-pelt... Not forgetting that they were very heavy aswell.

I'm also not keen on Sony's laptop displays, they don't offer higher resolutions for their 15" models - many are stuck with the standard 1280x800 which I feel is just too limited for a 15" screen.
 
kbc said:
I've played with 2 Sony Vaios but they're like really old models with the old Pentiums in there and they were notorious for heat problems. The fan would always run at full-pelt... Not forgetting that they were very heavy aswell.
Click to expand...

Sadly those are the type of laptops people buy in the UK. Its all about spec for price everything else out of the window. If there werent vaio's like these i doubt we'd have Vaio in the UK at all.

I'm also not keen on Sony's laptop displays, they don't offer higher resolutions for their 15" models - many are stuck with the standard 1280x800 which I feel is just too limited for a 15" screen.
Click to expand...

15" models by sony arent special in the UK, go for the smaller models or if you want a large Full HD1080 screen(1920 x1080) the 17". The UK has a decent selection of small Vaio laptops. Although they dont let us customise specs here sadly.
 
Having spent two dreadful terrible weeks trawling round large higghstreet electrical shops so i could actually "touch" the laptops, i came to the following conclusions:

Dell: Cheap, nasty feeling and not that cheap anymore price wise
Sony: Dissapointingly plasticky and the screens wernt great
Acer: Suprisingly solid, but the 1 year warrnty as standard is poor and I have seen first hand what that warranty actually means.... very well priced though
Advent: Not as bad as you'd think... but stilll not great
Compaq: As above
Samsung: Ouch
Philips: Ouch
Fujitsu-Siemens: Not too bad being honest but the best models were the tiny 12"'s
Apple: Best built by far but those prices...
OLD HP's: See Compaq
NEW HP's (with the shiny "inlaid" chassis) best overall.

In the end the guy i was looking with went for an £800 Brand new HP Sante Rose based system, T7200, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD, ATI graphics of some kind etc etc.

The chassis was by far the best bit though, it had no flex, didnt scratch easily and it even didnt mark that easily even though its shiny! The screen back was also the most solid. Aesthetically ithink they have it licked too, one of the really nice little features of this one was a full windows media remote included but also a small credit card sized one that tucks into a little slot in the side.

Its the same chassis as can be seen in the dv6xxx series (amongst others)
 
Sony laptops are well built, but lack functionality and are drastically overpriced for what you get. Much like designer clothing.

If you want a rugged, reliable laptop at a good price go for a HP Business Laptop.
 
If you want a more thorough opinion of the quality of certain brands, then check out http://forum.notebookreview.com

They offer constructive criticism of certain brands of laptops. I've heard of Acer not being too bad but the build quality isn't fantastic. Samsungs and Asus aren't meant to be too bad, the newer Asus G2 series are aimed at the gaming enthusiasts.

I've got a Dell M1330 and must say the quality is pretty solid, lookswise - pretty impressive if you ask me. I've taken some photos of it here. It would have been this model or the Sony SZ series which are typically over priced... but I've already made my decision.
 
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