Sony Vaio Laptops Worth the price?

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exorcist

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Hi all,

I am looking forward to buy an i3 Sony Vaio Laptop. But the prices on them are huge.
Was wondering is it worth paying the premium.
If not what should be a good brand.

I want a laptop which not only looks good.. is slim, 4GB ram, atleast 500 GB HDD. 2.0+ Gz.

Please help.
 

Bacterius

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Doesn't sound like a good deal to me. For the "huge price" you're talking about you could probably get something like a core i5, an SSD and maybe a cheap video card as an extra. Try looking at asus or dell if you want more options, or sager notebooks if you want quality (although they may not satisfy your needs). Give me USD $1000 and I can find a laptop with the specs you give with in addition a 1080p screen, a blu-ray reader and heaps of other stuff that you probably won't ever use.

Sony laptops are stupidly overpriced, I wouldn't pay a premium for that. But wait for more opinions.
 

Bacterius

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How is MSI Laptop??
http://www.msimobile.com/level3_pr [...] d=9&id=260

This is less than 500 dollars.
I read $749.99 but ok, well to be honest if you are not going to play games or anything this should be the laptop of choice, it has a decent 720p widescreen LCD monitor, a nice 4GB memory, the CPU is pretty good and the HDD has 320GB storage space. You *may* find the screen a little too small if you're used to 1080p resolutions but it should be ok (just check to be sure). Good battery life also, I'm pretty sure you can expect 3-4 hours of modest activity on battery.

Looks pretty good! Just don't except to play games on it - it will playback HD movies though because it features an HD video card, also a plus if you're going to watch stuff on your notebook.

To be honest if you are not to game on your notebook the most important concern with this laptop is the screen resolution which can be a bit low especially if your eyesight is poor, and perhaps the HDD which could use a few more hundred gigs (but you can plug in an external hard drive anyway). I would definitely check online for reviews of this laptop and pick it if it really matches your needs.
 

WindowsTeam_Kevin

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I think you could be able to find very similar highly capable laptops for less of the price. Based on your specifications, there are 2 laptops that come to mind.

The first is the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 15" for $609. Here are some specs:
Screen
15.6" (1366x768) HD
Processor
2.1 GHz AMD athlon ii x2 dual-core p340
RAM
4 GB DDR3 1067 MHz
Storage
500 GB HDD 5400 RPM
Operating system
Windows 7 Professional

The other, which I would suggest, is the HP Pavilion dv6T Select Edition at $699. This one has features, including an HP TrueVision webcam, Dolby Advanced Audio for a vibrant listening experience, and an HDMI 1.3b port for connecting a monitor or high-definition TV. It even has blu-ray. Here are the specs:
Screen
15.6" VGA (1366x768) HD
Processor
2.53 GHz Intel® Core™ i5-460M Dual Core Processor
RAM
6 GB2.5 MHz
Storage
640 GB Other 5400 RPM
Operating system
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

I think these are definitely comparable to a VAIO, and cheaper too. Definitely worth a look at least.

Kevin
Windows Outreach Team
 

exorcist

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Well, the laptop is not for gaming. Basically i plan to give this to my wife for our first valentines day after our marriage.
She wont do gaming on this. Plain simple surfing, youtube.. some downloads.. maybe plain simple photoshoping.


Do you think i should go for Core 2 Duo or Core 2??
What is a good among the two.. or should i stick to i3

The above msi laptop on officemax site is for 479.99

 

Bacterius

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The issue with slow processors is that you may experience slowdown while switching from one task to another. In the worst case an old laptop I had before actually fails to play back music reliably (insane stuttering) when opening the internet browser. I'm pretty sure you don't want , so try at least to aim for 1.6GHz for the CPU, it gets dangerously slow below. An i3 can be slower than a Core 2 Duo it really depends on the actual clock rate.

To be honest you'll be fine with the MSI laptop if it's the same specs on officemax. Yeah it's pretty much enough for what you (or your wife) need to do, so I would definitely go for that MSI at $500 if its the same specs as the one on msimobile.com.
 

exorcist

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Thanks for the reply bacterius.

The CPU speed for the laptop is 2.4Gz. Ram is pretty decent too.. 4GB

Here are the remaining specs.

Item # 341916
Manufacturer # A6200-461US
processor brand Intel
processor model Core i3
diagonal screen size 15.6 inches
memory 4 GB
hard drive capacity 320 GB
screen resolution 1366 x 768
weight 5.46 lb
optical drive DVD±RW/DVD-RAM
operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
processor speed 2.4 GHz
frontside bus speed 1066 MHz
memory speed PC3-8500
memory type DDR3 SDRAM
maximum memory capacity 8 GB
wireless connectivity 802.11b/g/n
network connectivity 10/100 Ethernet
modem no modem
webcam with microphone yes
numeric keypad yes
ports 3 USB 2.0; 1 Ethernet; 1 HDMI; 1 VGA 15-pin D-sub
memory card reader yes
video graphics Intel HD Graphics
integrated speakers yes
audio hardware Windows-compatible audio
Energy Star qualified yes
FM tuner no
peripherals included none
warranty length 1-year limited
model name A6200-461US
brand name MSI
manufacturer MSI
postconsumer recycled content 0 %
total recycled content 0 %

If you guys can reply by today evening.. i can go and pick up this tomorrow.
 

Bacterius

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It's good. The only thing this laptop cannot do is play games. For everything else, it will get the job done perfectly. I currently have a similar spec laptop with just a slower processor (1.8GHz) and I must say it is really nice to carry around. Hell it can even play back HD movies without any stuttering, while on battery! So you should really be happy with this MSI.
 

wildswan

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My 9 month old e-series Sony Vaio has a problem with the battery. When left SWITCHED OFF for 3 weeks the battery is flat. The battery is now reporting a degredation in the charging ability and Sony want me to buy a new one for £118. Aparently, batteries are consumables. This laptop has been rarely used in 9 months, on average only a couple of times a month. There are other reports of Sony laptop batteries losing charge when switched off, but Sony won't do anything about it.
I was going to buy another laptop this month, but it won't be a Sony now.

Don't buy Sony laptops unless you are prepared to buy a battery every year.

Oh and have read that the Sony BIOS checks if it is a genuine Sony battery and it won't boot if it's not. If true, you can't buy a cheap replacement battery.

Don't buy Sony laptops.

BTW It's an i3 2.1 GHz with 17" screen, 4GB mem and 500GB disk.
 
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