How long do you expect a Sony Vaio to last?

I just wanted to know what you guys think, how long do you expect your Vaio to last without failure?

 

I expect mine to last at least three years

 

Until it doesn't meet the requirements of the latest Windows OS.

 

I expect it to last at least 300, 000 years. One day less and I will be disappointed.

 

Daughter's is 3+ years old - uses it daily for college. Came with XP, upgraded to WIN 7 in December - still going strong without issue. Better than most other brands I've used/owned. Part of the longevity is how you care for them...

 

In the past week my 5 years old TX died, I cracked it open, fixed things I could and it's running like new again

 

My PCG-NVR23 lasted for 7 years before my son dropped it and knocked out something on the motherboard.

 

Ah, in other words 8 months or less.
(That's how long it took from Sony ended selling the first Z series until Windows 7 was formally released, and without drivers from Sony, obsoleted it.)

Normally, I would say a desktop lasts for 4-6 years and laptops for 3-4.
But for Sony, I would say half that, mostly because they don't really support a model anymore once it is "refreshed" into something else. They stop selling accessories the minute they don't sell the machine anymore, and never provide software or driver updates unless legal liability forces them. Repair parts are ridiculously expensive, quite possibly to discourage repairs and upgrades ($1000 for a BD drive? Like.no.other indeed).
With Sony, you buy what you see, and are expected to toss it away and buy another if you want improvements. Consumerism at its finest/worst.

So why do I even buy Sony? The design, mostly. Size, weight, features and usability at the time it comes out are excellent.
But a few months down the road, it will be obsolete. Count on it.

 

Good thing about vaio's is that their design is timeless.

Bad thing about the vaio's is that their hardware is outdated before they even bring their products to the market in Belgium. The 5400 rpm hard drives for example without any possible upgrade options.

 

Sony support sucks that's fact. On the other hand, my first gen Z is running on Win7...well that's not that surprising, but my 5 years old TX is running on Win7 as well with all functionality...there is usually way and the machines are quite quality built. Unfortunately I can't run Win7 on my IBM P90 and IBM didn't have bad support ;(

 

My Vaio VGN-S5 is 4,5 years old and I had no problems at all. I'm still using it a lot every day as my main laptop.

 

My VGN-S series is almost 4 years old. The video card just went out which forced me to buy the new F series. If it wasn't for the video card going out, I'd still be using it daily. For that matter, I'm looking for a NVIDIA 6400 GEFORCE video card to replace the one that went out.

 

My FZ21Z is 3 years old and still going strong. I've cleaned it out twice, and replaced the thermal paste with AS5.

 

That's good to know, it's making me think twice before getting a Sony. I've been spoiled by ThinkPad longevity. They are still cranking out updated drivers for my four year old T60p. But I suppose that's probably how it works for most business laptop lines. But aren't the Z and BZ Sony's business lines? How do they suppose any enterprises will buy into their machines if they don't provide firm support commitments for years down the line?

 

Weird comments, I guess from people who buy cheapest models or mishandling their laptops. Main reason why I buy Sony is because they are better build and dont break ( note -that applies only to top models) . Had dozen of Vaios, only once got the fan replaced and it was done quickly. Some of them gave to friends etc and it looks like easily can live 5 and more years.
Btw. I am performing artist so my notebooks are ab/used heavily, over the years had to reduce my brands to Sony and Apple, the rest cant survive. IBM are even better but unfortunately the pathetic-dark and generally substandard displays makes them unusable.

 

so far using no prob, 3 years and going.

Chirality: rare to see one organization using VAIO for their employee, mostly are DELL or HP. imho, business line product such as Z or BZ only been bought by a business personal , individual who needs such portability in their daily office works.

and pretty much agree with arth1 on software side. Sony kinda slow on updating their driver and providing support to old notebook lineup. and kinda not agree on accessories supplies mention by arth1. in my place, you can still get the accessory such as battery for obsolete VAIO series, but you have to place order for it. its take 2 weeks to get it. better than nothing right lol.

 

I guess it depends on where you are. I tried to buy a docking station for my Z (which I bought new for xmas a year ago), but was told that they weren't made anymore, and Sony had none to sell. Considering that they sold the machines as state of the art less than 6 months ago, that's not good.
With Lenovo, on the other hand, I had no problem buying a replacement internal DVD drive to replace the CD drive an almost five years old model originally came with.

 

We have a +4 years old VGN-A517B, used every day. Never had any problem with it. Other Sony was a FZ21Z, used for 1 year, and sold in perfect condition.
Now I have a 2 week old VPC-F11Z1E. Hope to have it some years.

 

My FW is in its 2nd year and I expect it to last at least 3 years (so about 1 and a half more) but of course, the longer it lasts, the better. The specs are fine for what I do so I don't care for having the newest hardware so as long as the laptop runs, I'm fine.

My last laptop, a Toshiba (see specs in the sig) lasted for 5 years though in the last year it was really struggling. If I open it up, clean it, and change the thermal paste, I bet it would run like new again.

 

My first VaiO come with Xp ,Athlon 1GZ 1gb of ram from 2001 still running .Only batteries died.

 

My first Vaio PCG-SR1K came with a Pentium III @ 500mhz and weighed in at a mere 1.4kg for the year 1999
I still use it, running Windows 2000
Had to get a new ribbon cable for the touchpad since I snapped it in half when I upgraded the RAM to 256 a few years ago.
I also had to replace the battery as it would only last 30-40 minutes but with a new one it keeps going strong at almost 3.5 hours per charge.

I also have a PCG-TR1MP that my mother uses occasionally, a 2003 model, still going strong.
A UX280p that is running just fine with Windows 7 and a 64GB Photofast SSD I installed a few months ago. Soon I am going to have it upgraded to a C2D processor.
A VGN-S1XP still running fine being loaned to many people throughout the years.
A TZ31 that has taken all kinds of abuse, on perpetual loan to a friend.
An X11 that's taken it's fare share of a beating without a single complaint.
And last, my trusty VGN-Z11XN that I get to rip apart about twice every week to swap between single and dual SSDs (as I need to do different things andI have different OSs loaded on each)
My Z has had it's heatsink removed and taken a mold of to create a custom built 100% pure silver identical copy to be able to handle the increased heat output of a QX9300. After a few months I scaled back a bit and installed a P9700 which is still way better than the original P8400 the vaio came with.
Aside from being under the screwdriver every few days, my Z has had it's bios flashed, hacked and kept running.
I even punched the lid a few times to slam it shut just to show to some friends how tough the poor thing is.

On all of my Vaios I've never had any keyboard or palmrest marks shown on the display, no diagonal or vertical lines, no GPU issues and no exploding batteries.

Admittedly I just checked and all of them are marked as Made in Japan and I have stuck pretty close to the top of the line models so maybe shorter lifespan is a thing happening to the mid to lower end models.
My guess is as good as any.
Oh, and I've never had to deal with Sony Tech support or had to ship a Vaio to be repaired.

 

my Vaio lasted 5 months before it started showing signs.

 

I'm not sure just which Z model was being referred to but Sony just recently updated their Win 7 drivers on most Vaio models. For example, the Z590 site now has drivers for every single OS: XP, Vista, Win 7 (cf. http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-list.pl?mdl=VGNZ590E).

 

Where can I find 64-bit video drivers that will install on a Z-590 (without using hacked drivers with UAC turned on and "test" mode)?

(Or the Sprint/Novatel WWAN drivers? Those who signed up for Sprint probably have 1-1.5 years left on their contract.)

 

Don't you know arth1, that you can use drivers for any refresh of Z? Just download the drivers for the last refresh of Z, unzip them and install. No test mode needed. That's how I always install the latest drivers for the 1st gen Z.

 

I think it depends on the price really.

If I see someone using a old N-series I wouldn't be surprised if it failed soon.

My SZ however I expect to last a few years - Possibly 3+ years, even better 5 or more.

Ans support - I had a freak battery failure and Sony support in Germany was good.

 

3 years maybe? perhaps 4 if it cost over £1000

 

If you're technical enough to do it (I am, but I doubt the average consumer is), and don't mind breaking the law (unfortunately, here in the US, using a third party extractor to circumvent the version check that Sony has put in place constitutes a DMCA violation), that's one way of getting the display drivers in.
But that won't help with the Sprint WWAN drivers, as none of the newer models come with this card.

In short, the Z-590 was abandoned by Sony at or shortly after release.

 

As far as I am aware Sony drivers come as zip, so need to be unzipped anyway.
If you then install via device manager - that shouldn't check the model either.

 

I'm used to to break law everyday, so I don't care much But of course you're right, Sony support sucks...and as I said many times, especially in Japan, where you can't even download the drivers for any series.

As for the WWAN I used to use some 3rd party software which worked just fine (with O2).

 

Thanks for the info.....

 

As my only pc, my FS740/W is still running good since i bought it in 2005. No plans to replace it, as the touchpad and keyboard are still good and show no sign of wear even with daily usage.

 

I'd like to think they would last at least 4-5 years.

Had my Z for about 18 months, still as good as new. The X since October, no issues yet & the S for about 2 weeks.

I have an old ThinkPad T40p that's still going strong from 2003

 

My SZ 3 series is running for almost 3 yrs now, still fine on the performance side of things, but battery life blows. I can only get about 3.5h, and that with WiFi off and screen dimmed. So practically the main reason I'll be upgrading this fall is battery life

 

Why not get a new battery?
Would be cheaper if the performance is still good enough for you - then you can upgrade your laptop in maybe 1-2 years which will see yet more powerful machines.

 

If they are available. Sony puts DRM in their batteries to prevent you from using 3rd party batteries without major problems, so unless you want to gamble, you're at the mercy of Sony still selling them.

 

Switch the ISBMgr.exe off (part of the autostart programmes) and you've removed that problem

Simple fix

 

I am faced with the decision of buying a Thinkpad vs Vaio. Robustness & reliability criteria are at the top. Its main use will be to do programming. Right now the balance is tilted towards Thinkpad. And I don't want to settle for less than a i5 processor. Still evaluating.

My current Thinkpad is still going fine for > 4.5 years with the only problem of vertical dotted lines on the screen. I am wondering how long would a vaio last without problems. I am thinking CW or EB series.

 

TR (2003). One crack in the bottom (my fault!). Broken power adapter (replaced with a Kensington ultra thin adapter). Dead Battery. Tried with a chinese one (original is no longer for sale) but it also died within aprox. 6 months. Everything else OK. Uses Windows XP SP3
SZ (2006). Paint wearing off in plastic side edges. Replaced the battery a year ago. The rest is just perfect, even with the heavy use (12h+ a day, rendering in 3dsmax+vray, autocad, photoshop...). Also everything works in Windows 7 without any problem.

So, I expect them to be obsolete in 3-4 years, but still working fine for a total of 5-7 years.

 

I bought an aftermarket extended battery for my TX a couple of years ago. I must say that it was been a really great battery. The original lasted over a year before its performance dropped significantly. The aftermarket one I bought was cheaper, and after 2 years it still gives me 7+ hours of battery life

 

I guess a question to the o.p. that I was thinking as I was reading through this thread: So, why do you ask?

 

I usually expect whatever I buy to last till they break, or until they are unable to handle whatever I make them do.

My last lappie was a Samsung R45; had that for 2 and a half years until Vista just threw it out the window, specs wise. After that, my current Z.

Having done my research prior to buying, the average laptop today comes with a C2D 2.1GHz with 4GB RAM (on DDR2), with about 400GB HDD (5200rpm). Considering that I bought my current Z in late 2008, and the CPU on it still surpasses the market average, I think I made a rather 'future-proof' choice.

So to answer the OP's question, I expect my 2nd gen Z (the older one) to last another 4 years, with a few biggish hardware mods here and there, with bluray, SSD, and RAM being the most notable (maybe the CPU but we'll see).

I personally don't understand why older Z owners here went along and got the new Z; as long as my Z serves its purpose without too many distractions, for me it's all good.

 

I still have PCG-SR that I bought in early 2001. It still works although the LCD has faded and the PC-Card has been fixed for loose connector. The laptop has survived two accidental drops to a concrete.

 

I would have expected my VGN-FE41E to have lasted 4+ years but it only made 3 before the main board failed Its replacement an i3 E series had better last longer or else!!!

 

Was it the mainboard or a faulty NVidia card?

 

My FZ lasted 2.5 years - something went screwy in the motherboard and the hard disk died.

 

The first time I saw this my mind interpreted it as, "My daughter is 3+ years old now, she'll be using it (the same laptop) daily for college".

Since using a netbook, duration of use has become proportional to price for me. For a $300 netbook, I expect to use it for say 4 months. If I buy a $3k laptop, that dries up the budget for mobile computing for 4x10 months ~= 3.5 years. So I expect a $3k Vaio laptop to last that long. With that price tag, it should work pretty well with the next OS upgrade within those 3.5 years, since it ought to come with state-of-the-art (today) hardware.

 

I wouldn't actually put numbers on it like that - but the idea - true.

On that note... we have some latops that work over 5 years on - 1000€ & 1300€ each - -1€ if you're exact

So how long should my Vaio last? 12,5 years +?

 

Those are like the Hondas of laptops: you spend ~US$25k, drive it for 200k+ miles Of course, at the expense of your "geek factor"

 

Mainboard, it wont even post. All that happens is the power, num, scroll caps lock led lights illuminate and stay on.