are sony vaio's worth the extra money

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:11 pm

To be precise Sony`s support is good but prices are obscene. They ask you 30 Euro just to answer your call or Email if you are outside of guarantee period. Only Sony and Apple build their own laptops, no idea what will happened or will happen to IBM once they became chinese, they used to be as good or better then Sony.The other Sony specific is that their higher end products are excellent the cheap ones are just branded junk. Unless getting good deal on 2-3 year support will not buy one again.

avtomat · Post by **avtomat** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:40 pm

Actually neither Sony, Apple or IBM bulid their own laptops, they all contract others to do it. Like Asus for example:

After becoming an OEM notebook contract maker for Sony and Apple Computer, Asustek Computer is expected to land notebook orders from IBM.
http://store.agearnotebooks.com/asusnotebook.html

One big problem with Sony laptops is that they usually don+t provide normal drivers, so it's a pain to do a clean install of the OS, install a diferent version of OS...

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:55 pm

avtomat wrote:Actually neither Sony, Apple or IBM bulid their own laptops, they all contract others to do it. Like Asus for example:

After becoming an OEM notebook contract maker for Sony and Apple Computer, Asustek Computer is expected to land notebook orders from IBM.
http://store.agearnotebooks.com/asusnotebook.html

One big problem with Sony laptops is that they usually don+t provide normal drivers, so it's a pain to do a clean install of the OS, install a diferent version of OS...

I wouldnt believe a word of a dealer. AFAIK from independend sources IBM, Apple and Sony were the only companies doing their own. It might changed recently but computer dealer is definitely the last I would ever trust, searching independent sites, computer magazine= anyone who does not want to sell you his product or services is a better idea. My personal experience is that the built quality of the 3 is far ahead of any other but all 3 cost more.

avtomat · Post by **avtomat** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:05 pm

Well this was just the first link I've found. There are numerous other sites if you do a search on google.
For example this was on a lot of computer news sites lately:
Asustek Computer recently outbid Quanta Computer to secure orders from Apple Computer for a 14.1-inch widescreen iBook model, according to a report in China's Economic Daily News.
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1141

And from the same article:
Meanwhile, Quanta retains contracts to produce Apple's iMac G5, Xserve G5, and certain PowerBook G4 models.

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:39 pm

Interesting, that is why I wrote "were" everybody tries cutting costs and max the price Clevo / Allienware the most extreme example of rip off.

MrYellow · Post by **MrYellow** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:41 pm

no.

-Ben

Jonsama · Post by **Jonsama** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 3:02 am

I would go IBM over sony in a heartbeat. If you cant afford IBM I would look into Toshiba. Thinkpads are built out of carbon fiber not plastic like the vaios and they are ROCK SOLID. 3 year warentee STANDARD. My thinkpad t42p eats viaos for breakfast:)

epiphanius · Post by **epiphanius** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:56 am

I wasted most of today trying to install windows xp home, which came preinstalled on a Viao lappie.

I was trying to install it fresh, without the incredible amount of garbage software which Sony crams on its machines (ranging from AOL through to inadequate, invasive and unusable Sony apps for everything from cd burning to just-get-on-your-nerves-for-no-reason-at-all applications which Sony excels at producing).

I failed in my attempt, as Microsoft would not activate the fresh install, so I had to go back to the Sony crap.

I would, for this reason, encourage you to get a generic lappie and put the os on yourself.

e.

FaX-01 · Post by **FaX-01** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:30 am

Vaio's are really no more expensive in Australia than any other brand over all

.
That said what is up with this BULLSHIT "TurboCache" technology they use of the Dedicated graphics bus that cache's a certain amount of specified RAM for more system intensive 3d rendering ?
Can it even be disabled.
As far as i can tell it's just a glorified version of non dedicated graphics processing.... something you would want to avoid in any DAW IMHO.

That said i can get a 1.73 or 1.86ghz Sonoma Vaio VGMFS18GP / 28GP for $2500-$2999 (AUD here) which is IMHO not much more if not the same as specifically spec'd ACER's and ASUS , SAMSUNG notebooks and a darn site cheaper than an IBM or Toshiba of the same ranking.

I'd love a IBM T43p 1-8 or 2.0 sonoma but $5000-$6300(AUD) is to put it bluntly a fucking joke

.

2kilo · Post by **2kilo** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:40 am

the one thing I like about SONY is their stuff is usually very multi-media friendly, ie preinstalled, QT, Real, WMP, DVD Software, Premier Lite, Photoshop Elements, etc...

Some effort has been taken to ensure that most audio/visual software works together without any clashes...

I would forget Apple note books, they are always a chip version behind the desktops [untill the INTEL thing happens]

galo · Post by **galo** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:02 am

i went ahead and ordered a vaio intel Pentium-M Centrino 740 Processor 1.73GHz, i have searched thru these forums and there seem to be positives and negatives against every make, some people love apple/ some hate, some love dell, some say that they would'nt touch them again, seems to be the same for IBM and toshiba's.

I guess its just the luck of the draw.

rikhyray · Post by **rikhyray** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:46 am

epiphanius wrote:I wasted most of today trying to install windows xp home, which came preinstalled on a Viao lappie.

I was trying to install it fresh, without the incredible amount of garbage software which Sony crams on its machines (ranging from AOL through to inadequate, invasive and unusable Sony apps for everything from cd burning to just-get-on-your-nerves-for-no-reason-at-all applications which Sony excels at producing).

I failed in my attempt, as Microsoft would not activate the fresh install, so I had to go back to the Sony crap.

I would, for this reason, encourage you to get a generic lappie and put the os on yourself.

e.

It is easy to do, recently helped some friends to remove useless stuff, true much more then on mine, the worst is the bloody useless Norton but this one comes on nearly every brand. I am writing it on my non music XP pro partition, no problem at all to fresh install anything. Sorry to say but it is not Sony or MS but the user problem- dont take it too personally. Perhaps ask some computer freak to help you.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:30 pm

AFAIK
Apple and Sony despite trying their very hardest to protect their brands by pretending 'we make our own hardware' are actually made by Asustek and Quanta. Read 'no logo' by Naomi Klein for more on this lying tactic.

but anyway - Apple OEM >>>

http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20050620PR200.html
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000570047395/

and slightly hillariously considering the mention of a G5 laptop.. but I guess that means they Quanta are already building your MacIntel pentibooks
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/14 ... erbook_g5/

I am typing this on an Asus with a centrino (dothan) 2.0ghz in, its almost exactly twice as fast as my desktop .. it cost me £1000. I had a Vaio for a while .. which was very nice but double the price.

Styling IS important, as is build quality, you just have to decide how important. I decided that as AsusTek build for Apple and Sony who tout their(!) build quality as the best .. then I simply went straight to the source!!

subterFUSE · Post by **subterFUSE** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:31 pm

With Sony, Dell, IBM & Toshiba, Alienware, VooDoo, etc... you are just paying more money for a nameplate on the back of the screen.

Check out M-Tech laptops. http://www.mtechlaptops.com

Compare the specs you get for the price, and it's ridiculous.
Not to mention, IBM, Sony & Dell don't even make laptops in the same league.

Coming in August, from M-Tech... 17" AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core laptop.

That's what I'm waiting for.

epiphanius · Post by **epiphanius** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 5:24 pm

rikhyray said:

It is easy to do

Are saying it's easy to install a clean copy of Windows xp, which you paid for when you bought the machine? If that's what you are saying, please let me know how you got past product activation.

If you are saying you know how to uninstall programs, that's great - did you also sift throught the registry for entries about every single one of those programs, and remove references to all of them? Did you also remove all the .dlls associated with those programs? Clean up the directories? Point 'open with' so that the files are opened with the programs you want to use? It may be easy, but it takes hours and hours...

e.[/quote]