Sony

Hermione*

So, my generous parents are thinking of buying their charming, wonderful daughter (me ) a laptop as a birthday present, and I have a pretty good idea of what specs I want on it, and all that. I quite like the idea of a Sony Viao. I was wondering what experiences boardsies had had with them, and whther or not you'd recommend them? The budget for purchasing is probably about €1k and up, depending on the specs of the model I end up choosing.

Thanks for your help!

majiktripp

Good build quality I think,quite pricey tho' (VERY pricey I find)IF you didnt want to go the Dell route they are a very good alternative however.

Pacifico

What do you want the laptop for?

You'd want about €1,500 for a decent Sony.

Although, they are great laptops if expensive (as stated above )

Karoma

Around the €1,000 gets you their entry level series. I wouldn't. As purdy as they look you could get a better spec. elsewhere. Don't buy by brand; it's really not the best indicator of quality.
Oh, background: I did tech. support for them. Ahem.

TempestSabre

I found them to pricy but good. Personally I just like their screens better than other laptops. They seem to last a long time in my experience.

majiktripp

you can try www.sony-style.co.uk and select Ireland and see what they have on sale there...

Hermione*

Thanks for the help

Hmm, having been into dixons, and having seen what they have currently have in stock, am now thinking maybe HP. They have smaller screens, handy for my train travelling and so on, and are very light. They may give better value for money also. I can talk the peeps into spending enough to get the one I want so money's not too much of a problem, I'd say I could push it to 1300 if necessary. Won't be using it for anything too technical, but since somebody else is paying the bill I'd like to get something decent that'll last me a while. I recently acquired an ipod, so it needs to have decent hard drive to store all the music I anticipate stealing from my friends' laptops.

CrowdedHouse

I have (this) Sony Vaio laptop exactly 3 years today and I've not had a single problem with it.

Will definitely buy another when the time comes.

falteringstar

One word.... macbook!!!!

http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/irlstore.woa/6034042/wo/Eo2zXQE4cbsd2IJ1PxJ2yi2x3ux/0.PSLID?mco=32B42242&nclm=MacBook

Avns1s

I have a VAIO for about 2 years, with no problems*. 16:9 x-black LCD.

It was pricey but on the plus side:

Very light and slim.
longish battery life.
excellent display quality.
fast enough machine.

* only small issue I had was when I let it through an airport xray machine on standby, caused the wireless adapter to object. Had to uninstall and reinstall, a few minutes work. Possible co-incidence about the xray machine, not 100% sure tbh.

iMrk

Hermione* wrote:

Thanks for the help

Hmm, having been into dixons, and having seen what they have currently have in stock, am now thinking maybe HP. They have smaller screens, handy for my train travelling and so on, and are very light. They may give better value for money also. I can talk the peeps into spending enough to get the one I want so money's not too much of a problem, I'd say I could push it to 1300 if necessary. Won't be using it for anything too technical, but since somebody else is paying the bill I'd like to get something decent that'll last me a while. I recently acquired an ipod, so it needs to have decent hard drive to store all the music I anticipate stealing from my friends' laptops.

Hi,

Lap tops are a pain to buy. Having spent months looking I thought I'd share my tales.

You really need to know what you want and you seem half way there.

Lap tops come in four main guises.
Desk top PC to Lap top = 15 inch upwards. They are big, heavy and not really for carting around. They really are just a tidy desk top replacement. But ..eh..moveable.

Then you have fancy tablet lap tops. Not really sure where they fit in as most are very portable but strangely strange... :eek:

Then you have the area you seem to be in. A computer that is portable. Now the portable is the question.... If it is for use in your home with minimum transport to somewhere else you can get away with a 15 inch type model with good spec. But if it is some thing that happens daily you want to look at 14in or <. Most lap tops seem light enough to lift but if you have the bloody thing over your shoulder for a few hours traveling it is surprising how heavy and uncomfortable they become. Thats why there are now (4th type) the ultra portable note books. But in that realm some times you are getting a play off between portability/battery life and function.

So what do you want to do with your lap top and how portable do you need it?

I have an unlimited budget for my lap top and yesterday I ordered one of the Sony SZ2 series. It has the 13.3 screen and comes in at 1.7 KG. It is also a power house with the 2 gig Dual core, gig of ram, nvidia graphics. Plus (and in my experiance very important) a 3 year NBD warranty. Thats coming in at about 2200 xVat. The warrant was 300+ ish alone. But.. I intend to use it instead of my work PC with a new screen. So I needed Power but some thing very light. You would be surprised how heavy a lap top can become when going from dublin to stanstead to germany in a morning.

I would suggest you look at a Dell or the likes and do your research. I mention Dell because of the warranty factor. Do not underestimate it's importance. With a desk top a mother board is "easily" enough replaced by a technican or savvy friend. Not so with lap tops. Expensive buggers to fix. My HP lappie had issues so I sent it off for repair. B'stard came back with a new mother board a Graphics card... 3 times!

Now.. the new big thing is "dual core" chips. The must have thing as it were. Now unless you are going to try and kill your lap top with use they are not really a must have.

So.. I'd suggest you go for a Dell Insperion 1300 And config it to suit.. very cheap and within your budget... OR take the deal on the lattitude D620 Burner.

Its 1379 but with a 3 year NBD warranty AND a 3 year accidental damage cover. Plus it is dual core with a gig of ram. Good graphics too.

If you are stuck on the portability issue I can suggest going into superquinn and using bags of sugar as measurement to weight 8lbs is a lot in one hand

setanta5

falteringstar wrote:

One word.... macbook!!!!

Couldn't agree more...and if someone else is paying....get it in black!!screens are easily as good as sony's, excellent battery life, fantastic machine..and yuo can run OSx on it unless you really really need to have windows.

I'm a recent mac convert as i'll never go back....they can't make me!!!

FranknFurter

Sony = way overpriced (for terrible spec for price) laptops, and Sony are very very particular about parts if anything goes wrong, usually it has to be fixed only by one of *their approved technicians* (who charge twice the price) or you void your warranty. (all of them).

Ever hear the phrase "cute but stupid"? That sums sony up nicely imho.

Avoid Packard Bell and anything made by Fujitsu-Seimens, like the plague also, even the metal ones crack and they use the crappiest parts on the market, even their labels fall off and leave sticky marks, Ive yet to hear of one lasting over a year without big time issues.

I use HP Compaq's, they are relatively sturdy and (imho) look nicer than Dells, have their downsides though, if a key comes off the keyboard, the method they use for putting it back in yourself involves non-shakey hands and two blunt needles. (doesnt really happen, I learnt it after an unfortunate experience with a cat).

B

anthony4335

I have had a Sony FX-503 for the last 4 to 5 years , and have only had to replace the HDD once, good considering that it has traveled to more than me,and has seen some abuse. So I would have to say I was very happy with it. I would agree with the poster above on the HP pacard bell, but not on the Fujitsu ,worked on a couple and they do not appear to be bad ,a little heavy. But I would/will go for the MacBook next time. No reflection on the sony...

Hermione*

Thanks people!

Mostly home usage, but I would to be able to carry it about when necessary e.g. when travelling to the homeland on the west coast. Nothing too tablet-y, one of the guys I used to work with had the size of a paperback novel and the screen was far too tiny! I was amazed he was able to get any work done on it.

Not overly enamoured with Apple; most of their products have great design, but imo their specs don't merit their prices (this also goes for ipods).

The parents have said they don't mind investing in something that wil last me a couple of years, althoughb that being said, I know they won't want to aspend an extra €200 just to get something that looks better than another model.