Comments on: Do Sony Vaios really suck, or is it just me?

By: Kaycee

Kaycee — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:26:43 +0000

I bought a Vaio for about $2000 eight months ago and I hate it. I loved it when I first got it, but the more I got to know the computer, the more I realized that a $300 computer from Walmart would work better than this piece of crap. It won’t even run Oblivion which is part of the reason I wanted the darn thing. That and all of my work is on it. Needless to say I was expecting a computer that would be up to at least those 2 simple tasks, but noooo. It lags constantly and the battery dies if I unplug it AT ALL. The only thing this computer has going for it is the fact that it looks nice. But really I’ve seen better looking Toshibas than this piece of crap.

By: Dave G

Dave G — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:08:05 +0000

The Vaio is an okay machine, but Sony’s support is a serious disappointment, particularly compared to how Dell support was on my previous laptop.
I purchased onsite support, expecting them to send parts and repair the laptop…onsite.

Of three incidents in the last two years–one physical damage by a car crash, one a bad mouse, and most recently overheating (probably a broken fan), for two of them they’ve told me “you have to send the laptop in to our depot”, and that onsite support won’t cover it.

I read the contract (vague enough to give them the ability to do what they want to, but no different from the other vendors), and my only conclusion is that they don’t really want to offer onsite support. Otherwise, they wouldn’t tell me that a likely bad fan is a “safety issue”, until after they replaced it onsite.

Other comments:
–It took them two times, and my diagnosis, to replace the motherboard when the video controller was flaking out; we lost the laptop for more than a month in repair time, plus the time that was spent getting and configuring a temporary system…not quite sure why they couldn’t diagnose it over the phone though.
–Their drivers/software to control the lan/wan/bluetooth power are flakey. Uninstalling them increased my system’s stability.

The system is pretty, but for the lousy and frustrating support alone, I won’t buy another Sony. I’m sorry to say that, I was excited to get it originally

By: LIVEdigitally » Blog Archive » How Blu-Ray Can Avoid Failure

LIVEdigitally » Blog Archive » How Blu-Ray Can Avoid Failure — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:34:03 +0000

[...] industry folk lamenting about constantly (yeah, I went there, but you kinda knew I would). Oops, too late. They also couldn’t afford to have UMDs fail. Or memory sticks. Or mini-discs. Oops [...]

By: Charles C Malloy

Charles C Malloy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:05:12 +0000

My experience with VAIO computers certainly runs counter to yours. That being said, I have avoided using VISTA like the plague. I have two Sony computers and if you count my SE 990i – three. The VAIO media center is thoroughly put thru vigourous use by my children, my daughter is an aspiring film maker and uses the MC to cut and edit short films with ease, again I repeat “NO VISTA”. My laptop is an overeclocked 2 yr old single core workhorse that I have used worldwide and as a plug for Sony 3 friends have the same worry free machine.
I too will look at another laptop near term and like the MAC book pro , however I will be using my current XP set up on it.

By: Leland Hendrix

Leland Hendrix — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:36:16 +0000

My hp dv6800 series notebook absolutely rocks with vista. I remember two days ago, it was recording a tv show in the backround while watching another on a second display, I was burning a dvd, and recoding recorded television, all while I was running music production software Sonar in the background to play virtual instruments from a firewire interface.

And that’s with a dual-core 2.0ghz amd with 3gb ram, a budget computer at $599

I would be REALLY TICKED if I paid what you did for that VAIO and got such sucky performance.

Good luck man

By: Robert Di-salvo

Robert Di-salvo — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:04:57 +0000

Jeremy,
I caught this article a while back but have been too busy to respond to it until now. I have a VIAO VGN-FS745P/H. That has been used pretty much to play EVE Online, I’m hardcore with that game and run a corp there. I will share my experience with the Viao. Within the first year the hard drive and the ram went. Both times Sony sent a service rep to my home to fix my Viao, both times to my surprise within two days free of any charge. Two months ago the well worn keyboard and when I say well worn, you could not even see some of the letters anymore.. Since the Viao was under extended warranty at this point I had to mail my precious Eve viao in, and that really sucked! Two weeks till I got it back.

Now I have a brand new keyboard now. I really don’t know how this little Vaio thats starting to look a lot fatter these days like a chunky dell has put up with all the abuse. It burns red hot under my right wrist while playing. The heat coming out the exhaust fan might as well be a torch and I often wonder when that video card will catch fire..

My desktop Viao is another story, I lose the hard drive at least once a year and I have traced it to a motherboard issue that can never be corrected. I have tried the Mac the OS is way to foreign for me im one of those guys that created a BBS back in the 80′s and ran Fidonet networks as well as other pioneered work.

I’m pretty sick of buying over priced junk that I cant fix myself. In that past I have been able to repaire my own cell phones and other assorted crap however I am now seeing a trend to sealed systems and I really don’t like it.

By: James Shorten

James Shorten — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:02:46 +0000

I bought a vaio in 2005. 1 year later (just past the warranty perriod) the backlight on the monitor broke. It cost about ZAR2000 (+- $650) to replace, luckilly the insuarance paid out but it took sony about a month to get a replacement part. The next laptop I buy will deffinately NOT be a sony.

By: Nick

Nick — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:41:52 +0000

You have the situation farily well encapsulated. I bought a Vaio back in 2002, preinstalled with XP Home. Could I upgrade it to XP Pro?

Not on your life as the drivers were tuned/restricted to work exclusively with Home. An upgrade to Pro meant the modem (which was crucial to me at the time) just didn’t work. Roll on two and a half years and the thing refuses to boot. Me being forgiving thinks it is a crashed hard drive. If only it were true but the reality was the hard disk controller on the motherboard had developed a fault and no end of coercion was bringing it back to life.

I also had a Sony camera that at about the same time developed epilepsy and refused to take photos.

So I swore of Sony cameras and laptops at the same time. I went out and bought a Toshiba laptop that does great service. Recently a neighbour gave me an ‘old’ Toshiba laptop of about the same vintage as my former Vaio. I was able to get all the drivers for this Toshiba for XP (any variant) Windows 2000 and Windows NT. I replaced the camera with one from a camera company and the laptop from a computing company.

Never again will Sony get my money.