How long are Sony notebooks supported?

I just sold my 15" MacBook Pro as I admittedly somewhat have an addiction to wasting my time on the internet, and have become increasingly introverted. So all I have right now for university is my Nokia Lumia 710 Windows Phone. I plan on utilizing the libraries for typing up documents and such.

I'm just bored at the moment waiting to be driven back to uni and figured I mine as well ask a question I have always wondered: How long are Sony notebooks supported? Not warranty-wise, but component wise. Battery wise, mostly.

If I pay $2000 for a Sony Vaio Z (not that I'm going to), how long will a person be able to buy a battery for it directly from Sony, or anywhere else?

 

it depends by model, so there is no true answer. I have seen parts available for some machines close to a decade. third party batteries seem to be available for every model ever made for almost every manufacturer. where Sony can lack is in driver updates and support. some models can have almost no software support after a couple years ( early graphics switching comes to mind. )

 

I've read elsewhere that Sony's support for their hardware (and software drivers) are gawd awful. The Z is being discontinued, so don't be counting on being able to buy new batteries from them for much longer (6 month or so after discontinuation, I'd imagine).

Fortunately for myself, I'm relatively handy with tools and can replace the battery cells manually, so that's a non-issue for me personally.

I'd imagine if you bought their extended warranty, they would have to support your hardware for the duration specified--be it 2 or 3 years. Perhaps they'll just replace your laptop with another model if there's some catastrophic failure in your Z in the warranty period and there's no new model Z to replace it with (don't quote me on this, you'd have to find out Sony's warranty terms).