Laptops: Buing Sony Vaio

[SLGR]

to be more specific, i want VGN-FS315s
Anyone knows if Vaio laptops "pays" back..
I mean, is it a good choise? Anybody having a Vaio to share experiences?

[sean]

I'm not sure bud, but I'm also in the process of buying a computer and I remember reading some reviews in other forums about this laptop and they were mostly/generally good. Do a little search in google as well for reviews or join a computer related community and they probably could answer your question even better. Good luck though, I myself am stock between Dell and Alienware.

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[Gary Bolton]

I have a Sony Vaio VGN A215M that I use all the time seeing as I don't own a PC anymore for over a year. Wear and tear wise they seem very good. This thing get used a lot and it's still going strong after a year. It's probably had more use now than most other people would use in 4 years. Mainly because it's used both as a laptop and a PC.

The best thing about them, which is what made me buy one over the other brands is the screen res and the X-Black screen technology. I get a better quality image than I used to get on my PC's 19inch CTR monitor. And the display was much more crisp and clear than all other laptops I saw 12 months ago. Not sure about now though.

If your a gaming person and are buying one with the intentions to play games, think again!!! There not really a gaming machine no matter what anybody tells you. And don't buy one based on playing games! Because there compact with little space were the CPU and Fan are unlike a large PC Tower case with plenty of free space, they do tend to overheat when playing games quite easy, plus some games don't support the mobile graphic cards very well at all and will not make use of the wide screen they have, you'll be left with black bars left and right of your screen. Although some games (be it a few) does make use of the wide screen giving you a full screen game image. Which does bring me to my next point, sony vaio's use ATI Radeon cards over Nividia, so they are fitted with good graphics cards.

All in all, the Sony Vaio are one of the best on the market I think, and the build quality seems good from my own usage of this machine in the last 12 months. However, there no replacement for a PC if you thinking of doing what I did after I sold my PC, in swapping a PC for a Laptop. You will regret it if you are doing that which I'm thinking your not.

Other things that might help.

The brightness setting on them is set by a button that only has 3 settings. Mild, Normal, Bright. The first two settings are useless and you need it on permanent full brightness to see things without the display looking to dull. Thats a bad point.

The keys can be a little flimsy, many time keys come a little unseated and I have to click it back down in position. Not a problem, but it happens every now and then.

Mine has 3 USB Slots which is good, I use a USB cordless mouse and still have two ISB Free.

Check to see if your model has Bluetooth built in and doesn't need a toggle as an extra.

Mine has dial-up plug-in slot, Cordless Radio Broadband, and standard Cable Broadband connection slots. Good feature.

Software: Well each to there own, but I didn't like the pre-installed software that comes with Vaios, I formated mine and installed XP Pro and installed all the drivers manually. By default they come with a restore pack and quite a lot a buggled software pre-installed like Norton Antivirus. If you fussy about whats pre-installed. Go into a shop and take a good look at one first to see how they come and what with. Becuase doing a format manually and installing all the drivers from the there site was a pain.

Also keep in mind though there not cheap also!