How would you rate Sony reliability ??

How would you ( proud Sony owner or ... ) rate Sony reliability and build quality ?

Very poor
Poor
Average
Good
Very Good

I know the design of Sony is one of the best. What about reliability and build quality ?? Please be specific the reason you love [or hate] Sony

 

I still have 7 year old Sony laptop. Use it everyday. I have dropped it from the height of about 3 feet 3 times. Part of the casing is falling apart (my fault). I replaced the fan once, RAM twice and HD twice. But the darn thing still works to this day. So, I have to say it is very reliable.

 

7 years!! wow, i can't say i've had a computer more than 4 years max, but sony is good overall

 

hendra, it's a big surprise for me that your Sony is 7 years old but still up and running, wow .... so 7 years, what is it capable right now ?? definitely not gaming, right ??

 

I have a 1-year old Vaio SZ. Was carrying it in the Sony laptop bag when one of the shoulder strap hooks came loose, and the bag dropped to a hard cement floor which a big thud. Didn't think much of it until I reached home, took out the laptop and noticed that one of the corners had bent inward. the DVD drive was jutting out by a few millimeters, and one corner of the keyboard had snapped out of the catch.

Everything worked fine though. So I took opened the case, snapped the plastic back in place, pushed in the DVD drive and now all is well again except for a small scratch at the side. Quite tough I would say.

The ONLY thing I dont like about the Vaios is the sudden-battery-death, i.e. "battery not present" syndrome which is well reported in these forums and elsewhere on the 'net. Experienced it myself too, and had my battery replaced under warranty.

 

What a bunch of Johnny-come-latelys!

In my house are the following Sonys: 505F, Z505, Picturebook C1-XS, and my TZ150. The 505F is from late 1997, the Picturebook is from ~2000, I think, and the Z505 is from 2001. The 505F is perfect, the Z505 needs a new CMOS battery, and the Picturebook has a loose F10 key because I dropped the power supply on the keyboard a couple of years ago.

The 505F is kept for sentimental reasons, and because as the list admin of a 505 mailing list I figure I should own one. The Z505 is pretty much unused these days- my IBM X30 replaced it years ago. The Picturebook has been my travel laptop for years, and imo remains the best VAIO ever made, and that's counting the TZ I'm writing this on. If I ever replace it, it will be with a C1-M series, the last of the model line, but a nice C1-M can cost as much or more than a TZ130, and I don't think they've made them in 5 years.

 

It can't even stream video from news websites, let alone gaming. Youtube is an exception though. It comes with crappy S3 video card with 8MB VRAM . But I still use it to listen to internet radio while sleeping and I am going to keep it because I may need it in the event that my main laptop is broken and need repair.

 

I have been using Sony machines (2 SZs and 1 FZ) only since 2005, but have found they are very well built and highly reliable. However, this is in comparison to Dell and Compaq (back in the day). Besides the battery thing which happened to me on 1 out of 3 (easy warranty fix at 11 months), they just don't fail.

 

I'm, now, using 5 yrs old v505 japan made. Still run great. came with 256MB ram. upgraded ram myself to 768MB. capable to run medium size video files and ancient game. very tough indeed. but not sure about china made model these day. plan to replace it with new refresh tz when Montevena arrives in June or all new designed S series or something equivalent. just anything that's japan made. always be sony customer, and will always be

 

I've had 3 sony's, all still working ok but have replaced two hard drives. They are all a pretty well build machine. The issue for me is not just the quality of the machine but the service provided when something happens. In my opinion, Sony service had declined over time to the point of being horrible. I could rant and rave about this and that, but the simple fact is they are terrible at returning phone calls and in overall communications.