Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic opt out of new Mobility Radeon policy

Which mean that Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic owners will have to wait for manufacturer drivers instead of new Catalyst upgrades every month like for desktops, starting with 10.3 to be released in March. Other manufacturers thankfully didn't choose to opt-out. Cudos to them.


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I had to put an * instead o "a" because the board software doesn't let me write that word and xxx instead o www because will make a wrong link.

Now we need a 10.3 leak.

 

Not very brilliant of them. Suddenly Acer has better driver support than Toshiba
I thought HP would opt out too- pleasant surprise.

 

To be fair, those companies are likely thinking of thier business market. Those manufacturers aren't usually known for gaming/enthusiast machines, and most users who dont game are happy with a working driver and care nothing for performance.
Still a bit cack for buyers though, lets hope no one else opts out.

 

I imagine Toshiba Qosmio owners will find this pretty disappointing.

 

Never heard of a Panasonic laptop

 

there is a panasonic notebook, its called the panasonic toughbook

sony did the same thing for nvidia drivers, its quite annoying as they dont release driver updates unless there is something wrong with a driver. i suppose they do this just so they dont have people phoning up support saying a driver update hasnt worked.

anyway only gamers really need drivers and your average gamer could work out how to use modded inf files to a driver

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1012

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure your jaw would drop to find out what is not released in the US that is released in Asia.

Big problem in the US is the fascination over brand names. That's why morons are willing to spend thousands for nothing because it has an apple on the back of it. Just about every Japanese company does not release their top elite products in the US, but they do sell some of them in Europe. US consumers in general are too stupid to do research and product analysis. And this is for all kinds of products not just computer parts. The best audio gear, cars, watches, etc. are not sold in the US because it's not German, Swiss and whatever other stupid reasons US consumers come up with to justify their brand loyalties.

 

So u can't upgrade the drivers from the NVDIA or ATI website and have to use the OEM drivers?

 

It's not surprising for Sony notebooks, as they don't get any driver updates from ATI/ Nvidia.

 

Thank you for impugning American consumers because of Apple fans... Sadly, I have to agree. Many consumers (not just Americans) disregard Asus and MSI just because they're from Taiwan or because they have never heard of them.

From my experience, Panasonic has a good reputation in the US.

 

So the driver installation recognize you are using one of these fail brands and terminate? I can install mobility drivers fine on my x1600 Asus.

 

So what does this mean? If you own either of those brands, you can't download 10.3 off ATI's site and mobility mod it?

 

Providing mobility modder keeps going, then yes you'll be able to download 10.3s off the site and mobility mod them.
However as of next month, OFFICIAL mobility drivers will be beginning, you won't be able to use those if you own a machine of x brand, because they opted out.

Basically it'll be harder for owners of the brands opting out to get updated drivers, other brands will be able to download the normal driver and just use it.

 

Im guessing you can still use the mod tool if DriverHeaven is willing to keep it updated for ATI cards after ATI starts supporting mobile cards.I would think the mod tool would go the way of the dinosaur myself.

 

It's in the HW ID that determines what vendor your card is from. And yes, I have have to mod my driver inst. every time if I want drivers that are remotely relevant.

 

While it doesn't surprise me that Sony (who's obsessed with ruling everything they sell with an iron fist) and Panasonic (who's obsessed with making sure that every laptop they sell is 100% stable) would opt out, I don't get why Toshiba would do so.

Aren't most of their sales in consumer-grade laptops, where this kind of thing would be useful?

 

I am not at all surprised that Sony is doing this. It is just a continuation of the terrible driver support I have experienced with them.

 

Panasonic : Ok! They are focus on professionals so in-house tested driver is much better for their consumers.

Sony/Toshiba: W#F they are doing?

 

yeah! those stupid americans, with their stupid american stuff, and all! man, they are just so dumb. what stupid american pigs. oink oink oink. man. what morons. so stupid. and dumb! and stupid! with their stupid reasons and stupid dumb stuff. and not just about some things- they are stupid about everything! all sorts of stupid things. dumb americans. that must be why the japanese don't sell their stuff in america. the stupid americans just wouldn't know how to turn it on, and whatever other stupid stuff americans do, too.

 

Dont these makes work with Nvidia mobile drivers, if they do is it not a double standard not allowing them to work with Ati mobility drivers?.

 

To the best of my knowledge, absolutely no Sony works with drivers that are downloaded straight from ATI or NVIDIA. Even the Sony FW with the ATI HD4650 has to have modded drivers or you have to wait on Sony to refresh them, which they don't unless they discover severe DPC latency issues or they get a rash of customer complaints about a particular driver version. If it works when it comes off the factory floor, then not much is going to change for most end users.

 

sony could so easily improve cusotomer service but they just dont. there are a lot of other things that annoy me about sony notebooks such as when i want to plug in an external monitor i have to hibernate my notebook, plug in the monitor and then switch it back on which is really annoying.

oh and to add to that the europe tech support is useless i phoned then up cos i couldnt register my notebook on to some sony site and it took them like 3 moths to sort it out

unless sony improve i think ill go for another brand next time for example dell who give far better driver support to their customers and also have slightly better tech support.

i do like the reliability and cooling of my sony though