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sony vaio vgn-FZ21E,good deal or not?
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19-06-2009 12:23pm#1
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OK, Heres' may take on it there are two factors here, a laptop and a load of stuff with it. You have to separate the two to see what you are buying.
As an example yesterday I bought a 1TB External HDD for 89euro from Easoms of all places.
But putting that aside when you buy a new PC a portion of the price goes into the warrantee and aftersales service. Look at how much Dell add on for 3 year on site and how much you could knock off the overall price when they did (not sure if they still do) the 3 month only warrantee. Same when you go to PC World they can discount (or make more profit) by not paying the OEM for a warrantee and taking it on themsleves. So if as a minimum I'd factor in minus 100euro from the new price for no warrantee.
Next ask yourself what you are buying and its main points
Its portable and runs on battery, then ask yourself how long batteries last and the cost of replacement? I haven't checked but I'd guess 100euro would be a minimum and I'd allow 150euro for a new one so now lets take 150euro off the new price (or last available price).
That gets us down to under 500euro BEFORE we now decide what a year old laptop is actually worth.
I'd also ask myself are there any pluses to this particular system that would put the price up, these would include anything that made this system a class leader, like super lightweight, great battery life, brillant graphics or other stranger pluses like very large production run and subsequent cheap spares, but I can't think of any.
Next I'd look at what I cold buy a similar spec laptop for and locally I can get a good quality system of similar spec for around 600. So I'd have to say the system would be worth a maximum of 350euro (current similar price less what is missing warrantee and battery). Then its value is less than that simply because its a year old so for laptop alone I'd say max 250euro. Don't forget a year old laptop may be a lot older than that in terms of technology particularly if bought in a retail outlet in this case I think you mentioned the model is two years old.
Now lets look at the "extras". Have you ever wondered why when you are buying something in a shop you can often get a lot of extras thrown in at a much lower price? Its just to make the sale, the shop either looses the sale or takes a reduced profit on some items with a high mark up. The situation is similar here but your freind is not a retail shop and all he is doing is clouding the price with the extra stuff. If he sells you the laptop for a reasonable amount he's then left with stuff he can't sell for anything like as much as they are separate items that he has to go and find a buyer for, just like a shop he either needs to thow the stuff in at a very good price or keep the lot. So at current prices you could get the extra's at say 160euro (1TB external HDD 90euro and 70 for a decent wireless keyboard and mouse - value of HDMI cable zero its just a cable only idiots buy gold plated ones at PC Worlds prices) and second hand the value is less than half of that but lets be genourous and say 80euro.
Grand total 250 + 80 euro = 330euro.
The reason I said stick it on eBay was to enphasise that an item is worth what someone will pay for it, your example from eBay was a complete joke bet you didn't read the sellers feedback for similar items - quite a few unhappy customers. On the other hand people will often pay far more than an item is worth but that doesn't mean the item is worth what they paid more often than not means that they knew no better. On eBay you get extremes of off the wall Buy it Nows waiting for some idiot to turn up or low starts and very poor end prices, a better way to work out a price is check the actual ending price of real aution items and expect to pay slightly more than a real auction price for an item you can see and inspect first.
Then don't be fooled by the Sony lable as I've seen as many Sony laptops for repair as I have any other brand and the laptops always seem to me to be more expensive than other makes of a similar spec, putting it bluntly you pay more than you need to for the Sony logo. I also don't like all the resource hogging extra software the Sony lumber you with. While I'm on about software check the Vista key is still readable and that the backup disks for restoring the laptop were made and can still be read - minus lots if either are missing. afaik sony don't supply restore disks but include a program so you can make your own when the computer is new - lots of people don't bother.
OK so you might think my price it too low now look at it another way....
You've just paid say 400euro (just for the laptop ignoring the rest) and find you need a new battery and it costs you 150 euro the laptop just cost you 550euro is a year old and if any other problem develops the laptop could soon be costing you more than a new one.
btw sorry if I'm off the wall on the battery price but at very least look up the cost of a new one, but don't buy a cheap one from HK on eBay;)0 -
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