How's Sony's warranty?

I'm debating a bunch of systems that sort of meet my needs. Think I'm ruling out the Asus N80 because it's fishy as to whether or not it really has an LED backlight.

The Macbook Pro (with an external Blu Ray drive) and Sony's AW more or less fit the bill (I wish they had Geforce 9800 class GPUs, but...)

One thing in Apple's favor, is I've heard a lot of good things about their warranties, and bad things about Sony's.

I'm going to be pushing this hardware HARD-100% CPU use whenever it's plugged in, if not also 100% GPU use, so I need good hardware, and a good warranty.

So...how is Sony's? Is it worth $500 for their 4 year?

How big of a pain are they when there are problems? Etc., etc.?

 

mercy!...i'm not sure how the warranties are, but what do you do that always is pushing the hardware like that?? I wish i had something to do with my computer that pushed it harder!

 

I run Folding at Home on all my systems to help cure cancer and stuff http://folding.stanford.edu/

 

My experience wasn't so bad. I called them up, told them the problem, they overnighted me a box with a shipping label, I boxed it up and sent it out, and it took them maybe 2 weeks to fix, though that was because the part was on back order. So it's not going to be as fast as Dell or Lenovo, but I'd say reliable.

 

That actually sounds really good to me! Thanks!

 

can anyone comment on the onsite service and accidental coverage?? My warranty with dell is just plain awesome, and hopefully the sony will be just as good. 24 hours a day, all i do is go online and chat with a dell rep, tell them what parts i want, and they send them out. If i want someone do to the work for me, all i do is specify. I talked to the rep on monday morning at about 2-3 a.m., and the parts were here tuesday by lunch.

 

What section do you have the warranty through? THat does sound really good.

I WOULD have gone Dell, always do, but they seem to have abandoned the mid and high end markets, at least for consumers. They've also killed off their forums (effectively), which were always a huge selling point for me.

 

I think you should also be considering whether you're likely to have a problem in the first place. Given my personal experiences, I'd say you'd be better off with the Sony for core reliability.

I mean, I'm sorry but I can't tell you about recent service quality of Sony notebooks - simply because I've never had occasion to use it*.

On the other hand, I've replaced all of my own-use MBP's at every single model refresh in that period and I've used Applecare on them a lot. The reason for the frequent replacement is that I'm tied to OS X for some stuff and I've always upgraded in the hope that the reliability / build quality (and we're not talking about the fit & finish on the exterior) improves with each refresh.

I don't abuse my notebooks, but I don't baby them either. I expect them to survive the odd knock in a laptop bag (and the Macbook Pros do survive just fine, only there's a dent to show for it as opposed to nothing on the Sony's / Lenovos / HP's / Dells that I carry in the same manner), I keep them dust-free, and they're generally treated fairly well. But I do use each machine intensively while I am using it.

And I'd say as a generalisation that while Apple hardware is very pretty, it goes wrong often the more you're slightly pushing it. Unless you hugely overbuy for your needs, if you use the power it's supposed to have on a regular basis in non-optimal environments and it'll fall over on you a lot. Apples may be very well designed, but as I've found out in the last 3 years they are machines engineered for consumer use at best.

Getting back to Applecare though, I have very few complaints about the way the service is delivered vs what it promises. The in-store Geniuses aren't always particularly knowledgeable but they do make sometimes a herculean effort on your behalf, I've never met an unpleasant one, and the all-over support experience is very slick. The turnaround time for the service stipulated is not bad - The longest turnaround for a laptop has been three weeks. It's decent consumer support.

But my problems are that a) it just is needed too often, b) you can't uplift the service, and it is absolutely ridiculous for example that if I want prompt support I have to carry in everything to a Store, even the desktops, and c) that if you send your machine away, it can be gone for weeks with no other option.

Applecare is decent consumer support as I said, but it is consumer support - i.e. for people who don't know better, or don't do anything important with their machines. Sony might well be the same, although I always cover my VAIO's with the 3-year service, but I just have not needed to pick up a phone to them at all (except to register the warranties) in the same period as I've owned equivalent range-topping Intel Macs. As for other manufacturers like Dell, as some of the posts above has pointed out if you pay for their uplifted support, it can be vastly superior in practical terms of downtime to anything Apple (and maybe Sony?) has to offer. I have same-day support on my Precisions for example, which costs only a little more than the additional cost of Applecare on my Pros.

The crapness of the Apple hardware in terms of how it works in real life is what leads me to upgrade every time in the hope that things improve. With Sony on the other hand, I'm just updating for the spec / form-factor bump.

However, whether this bothers you depends on a number of factors. Many people are blown away by Apple's product presentation when they encounter it for the first time and become rabid Apple fans. For some people, visiting an Apple Store becomes an occasion - They even use it as a meeting point.

But while I appreciate for example that my Airs came packaged like designer hats and were much easier to get running out of the box compared to e.g. my bloatware-infested TZ's, what I really care about is how well it works in real life once it's ready to go - and how seldom I need to have it in for repair. For me, Apple hardware fails on both levels.


* A clarification on that point: Every single VAIO I own and have owned recently are the flagship-in-their-category Made-In-Japan models. I have zero experience of the lower-end models, which are built entirely in China. I don't know where the AW is built / finished.

 

This forum might be interesting to you! If you plan on going with the 4 year you can get it a lot cheaper off of sites like provantage.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=320191

 

Thanks for all your comments! I hadn't even thought of the Japan versus China (possible) issue.

Sony has the most reliable laptops year after year after year of all the models Consumer Reports is able to track. They're still pretty unreliable compared to a lot of other consumer hardware, but they're the only brand consistently more reliable than the pack, so it's probably not just you having good luck with them!

I did get the feeling from a Macbook Pro I used last year that it wasn't really designed to be pushed-just because either gaming or Folding on it caused it to get crazy loud (of course that doesn't necessarily mean anything bad).

I don't live anywhere near an Apple Store, so I'd have to be sending stuff in for Apple Care.

And honestly, I'm more impressed I think with the AW and FW systems from Sony in terms of how they look that Apple's hardware (plus I place looks probably dead last on the list of things I care about...though they're a nice bonus )

Thanks! I'm kind of nervous about doing that just because I don't understand if it's for real or how they can offer it $130 cheaper than Sony, but thanks!

 

Yeah. Sorry for the giant post - I started with a pithy paragraph and it ballooned through multiple editing.

I do want to like them, I think there are precious few more stylish machines on the market and as much as I might deny it to myself, I am a bit of a wannabe hipster. But it's just that using them these days offends my sensibilities as an industrial design engineer (among other things I am) for the obviously avoidable functional compromises in the machines which actually impacts my everyday working experiences with them, which have been clearly dictated by the design-focused guys who don't have enough experience to make those calls, and not the engineers. If I didn't need OS X in the course of my work, as things stand at the moment I'd be quite happy never to use one again.

One simple-to-understand example of this is on the desktops - the Pro's very sleek-looking hard drive caddies vs the ugly blue plastic ones on the Dell workstations. One of them is really hard to extract, pretty good at trapping your finger, the placement / cooling arrangement makes all but the first disk run very hot, needs exactly the right screwdriver to fit the disks on and frequently misaligns, causing the hard drive to buzz. And that's not the Dell. And this is pretty much the essence of my problem with Apple, especially now. Too much style and 'surface feel', not enough substance.

Sony I think get the balance much better. The stuff isn't as in-yer-face sexy and the approach to product engineering is more 'traditional', but making great hardware is what Sony has been about for ages, and if my experience is anything they haven't changed that much. In terms of laptops they push the envelope a little more than Lenovo has, which I think has been the reason why Lenovo has always had the edge in terms of perceived reliability and build quality. But as a balance of all the things that makes a laptop great to use, I still rate Sony's flagships among the best, if not the best.

 

I'm very interested in this report. Is it available online anywhere? I've tried to google for it and I can't seem to find it.

 

No! Thank you! I really appreciate it! (And I am reading it all! )

I'm not sure it-if it is, it you'd have to subscribe to access it. They don't have any advertising and rely totally on subscriptions and donations.

I just read it in the magazine-I think they post updated data at least once, maybe twice a year. Sony's always been ahead of everyone else, for all the years I've been subscribing. Everyone else is bunched maybe 5 or 6 percentage points behind them typically. They don't cover every brand though, as they have to get enough data to get a statistically relevant score.
Toshiba is kind of the exception, where they seem to swing back and forth between being closer to Sony, and more like the rest of the pack from year to year.

 

I am glad to hear Sony is at the top. I just bought the SR and hopefully it lasts longer than my Latitude. It will be interesting switching from Dell to Sony. Hopefully all goes well.

 

Well, to be clear the % with problems is still crazy high compared to other electronics (everything from TVs to regular computers to digital cameras), but at least they're always the best of an unreliable lot

 

To kind of go along what Vogelbung said, my first and only notebook that I have owned prior to my recent notebook purchases lately was a Sony FZ series 15.4" model from my local Best Buy. When I purchased it, I was about to go to college so my parents splurged a bit to help me additionally purchase a 3 year full accidental coverage from Best Buy (I used to work at Best Buy so I got the Best Buy coverage cheaper), not from Sony. While I know your question pertains to Sony Support, it is worth noting that the 1 and half years I used my VAIO (from school, to work, to entertaiment) I never once had a single problem software nor hardware. Sure, the Sony came with the typical Bloatware, however, what machines don't now and then, and unlike some major notebook manufacturers that I have come across, Sony at least makes it easy to remove installed features and programs. So, yes it is a bit annoying, but relatively easy to do.

Furthermore, after my use, I sold the notebook to a local friend who uses it as his and his wife's only computer in their apartment. I also transferred what remained of the service plan over to them as well. I actually spoke with him this past Saturday and happened to mention the notebook through conversation and he said (now another year and half later) that they have had no problems with it what so ever and that this is the first computer they have ever owned that never once had an issue (previous computers they owned were desktops from various major brands). So, for Sony build quality, it seems, in my case, to be very good.

Am I a Sony fan boy, no. I choose my notebooks and other computers based off parts, need, and price. However, it is also something to note that if you look at my Sig below, I have recently gone through HP (twice) and Lenovo and all of their machines had some kind of hardware issue right out of the box. Now, I am looking at the Sony SR series again since they have the $200 coupon currently going on. I understand that 5% to 10% of all computers will have an issue within the first 6 months, but to have 3 different notebook models all arrive DOA says something about their quality in my opinion.

Just my 2 cents.

BBGus