Sony Vaio laptop- should i buy?

pacman_2

Looking to replace current laptop. Wife is keen on Sony (rather than Tosh last time). To be used for e mailing,surfing, I player and maybe webcamming. howw much ram would I need?

Hammyman

No more than 2GB and you could probably get away with 1.5GB. Long and short of it is that there is not a single laptop sold on the market that doesn't have enough RAM for virtually most needs.

Netbooks are a different matter and most would benefit from an upgrade from 1GB to 2GB.

John_Gray

Sony Viao will be dearer than most laptops, but they are said to be better made.

Enterprise_1701C

I have a Sony Viao, 64 bit with 3 gb RAM. Absolutely love it. Web cam is good on it too. One thing I love about it is the tactile touch pad, and I like the fact I can press a button and be on the net in seconds.

fwor

Hammyman wrote: »

Netbooks are a different matter and most would benefit from an upgrade from 1GB to 2GB.

I'm not disagreeing with you on this - I tried a samsung netbook a few weeks back which had 1GB and it was pretty slow running XP - but can you explain why?

Hammyman

fwor wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you on this - I tried a samsung netbook a few weeks back which had 1GB and it was pretty slow running XP - but can you explain why?

Yep. Its an Intel Core Atom N260/N270 CPU which is slower than the old Pentium M ones in laptops half a decade ago. The newer dual core Atom CPUs address the situation a bit but they're still asthmatic compared to mainstream notebook CPUs but thats the trade off for portability and all day batteries if you want to keep it sub £500. You can but sub notebooks barely bigger and heavier than a netbook with proper Core 2 Duo CPUs and a battery that'll last several hours but they're typicall around the £1200-£1500 mark.

pacman_2

Thanks for your advice, all. My wife wants aVaio and the one I looked at is £gb, built in webbcam, for about £400. Seemed good but I just wanted to check if there were any major problems with them.

CoolHotCold

Sony Viao are less reliable than Toshibas, (Toshibas have the lowest failure rate, but not many studies done).

Tropez

I've been the owner of two Vaios. One had a known issue (unknown when I bought it) that caused excessive hard drive failures for some reason - Sony were fairly good about it and gave me a Sony store credit for the purchase value of the laptop which I put towards a different Vaio that, touch wood, has been working perfectly for several years now.

I also own a Toshiba A500 laptop and that is a good, reliable device too.

Vaio in general are considered to be reliable machines but you do pay a premium for them. It is worth noting however that hardware issues outside of warranty are often very expensive to have Sony themselves repair.

cd1986

i'm on my second Vaio now and both have been brilliant. They feel much better made than a lot of other makes

vaio

another vote for Sony especially the 1920 x 1200 screen.

Mine is getting old & battered and due for replacement so if anyone spots any good deals feel free to post