Is Sony reliable?

I ordered a Toshiba M45 as a replacement for my Vaio K33 which developed a hard-drive failure. I am considering cancelling the Toshiba and going for a Vaio S360 which currently is only slightly more expensive with rebates at Best Buy. I'm a little wary however, because of the K33 failing, as well as posts about memory problems with some older Vaio's (2000-2001 year models...I think it was the PCG series).

So has Sony fixed its reliability problems with the S360? The K33 was the second machine I had to return (I had an eMachines 6809 before which failed as well) and Best Buy is probably getting sick of me.

 

Hey, well I had a M45-S331. I had to return it 3 times. Sony, IBM and Apple are the best in the market. I never had any problems with my sony laptops, the only bad thing is the customer service, besides that Sony is excellent. If you want a good deal on the S series go to Circuit City, the have the best deals and the best rebate programs.

SONY VAIO FS570
Centrino 1.73 Ghz
60 Hitachi 7200 Hard Drive
1 Ghz RAM

 

Thanks thiagofl84. I was hesistant about getting the s360 because my K33 failed. I'll call up Best Buy and see if they can cancel my order on the M45. I just hope the S360 lasts me a good amount of time.

 

From my experience Toshiba gives you the 3 year warranty and Sony only gives 1 year. I bought my S260 with the 3 year extended warranty for $400USD just to give myself some piece of mind. I've used Toshiba's warranty service and they are awesome. A had a failed harddrive which was replaced within one week. They even sent a purolator box to the door with a prepaid express shipment back. My friend had some major troubles with his Toshiba tablet PC and had to return it more than a few times because of it's problems. After two years of ownership, Toshiba just replpaced the tablet with a brand new current model M200. I haven't really dealt with Sony warranty since my Sony notebooks have not had any major problems. I'm also a 10 minute drive from a Sony service centre so it has made it easy getting my other Sony toys fixed.

--Trevor--

 

Warranty usually is useless for sony. I bought many sony products including desktop or laptop computers, DVD player, TV and digital cameras, and have never got any problems with Sony products. That is why I have never used the sony warranty and never considered buying extended warranty for sony.

 

Older Sony Vaio notebooks had overheating problems. My wife's PCG-FX340 died. We got it fixed by Sony once for $270 and then it died again. There was a bunch of info on this on the web 2-3 years ago with many other people complaining. Newer Sony notebook lines may not have this problem. But I passed on a Fujitsu N3510 after feeling the heat it generates just because of this experience.

 

I have had good luck with their service -- was kind of hesitant at first,but they replaced my s360p's fan due to it being too loud -- although I had to state the problem correctly to the rep I was speaking to (As well, once I recvd the unit back it was still very loud). The laptop seems to be built pretty good (coming off of a number of years with IBM T-Series so that is a pretty high benchmark to live up to.). Not as solid as a thinkpad though... DVI output from the docking station is great... Of Course Xbrite rocks too -- I can see my dead pixel so much more clearer.

 

I have two VAIO laptops, an older PCG-FXA63 and a newer VGN-A190. Neither have ever had any problems. Very reliable! [ ]

 

RE: thiagofl84

do you see a big difference after upgrading from 4200rpm to 7200rpm? i have same notebook as yours and it has 100gb 4200rpm. which hard disk do you recommend? i plan to sell the 100gb 4.2k on ebay. is it possible to buy 80gb 7200rpm without extra money after selling 100gb?

 

IMO, Made in Japan, the laptops are good quality if they are designed well. I am myself, have a 3 year old Sony laptop (I think I am the only person with this laptop, as it was too expensive then) and this is the best built quality I have seen on a laptop. Rivals the older Thinkpads before they were outsourced.