Just got a SZ680 Beware of the silver Keyboard...It's AWFUL!!

My wife's SZ680 arrived yesterday.....I'm definately an ASUS fanboy, but she wanted small light and above all else good build quality/materials. So the Sony was a pretty natural choice. This is no means a review of the laptop (It only lasted 3 hours before an RMA was issued), but just some observations.

The Good
Sony were very quick to build & ship the laptop....3 days from time of order until delivery!!! They are also excellant at updating you as to the progress of the order.

The build quality (excluding keyboard) was very good....the quality of the materials are excellant.

The weight of the machine is fantastic....I have a 17inch Asus W2P which is literally twice as heavy, so to handle the Sony is a marvel by comparison.

The actual brightness of the screen is also extremely impressive...

The Bad
The packaging the laptop ships in isn't good....The laptop is held in suspension using plastic film that is stapled in place.....whilst it undoubtedly protects the machine, it's a bit of a one time affair which is a problem if you need to send the laptop back (as I did).....I had to tape the computer back into the box...hardly ideal!!

Other than a power brick and an express card media reader, the laptop comes with NOTHING, there isn't a single cd, cable, mouse, cloth......so I guess the entire $2380 is all in the laptop!!!

The quality of the color calibration of the display is without question one of the worst I have ever seen on a notebook.....The colors were horribly washed out & it really pushed blue (I guess to make white look more crisp)....Admittedly, I didn't check to see if there were color preset adjustments (a la Asus Splendid Video).....I'd heard that the screen was great on the SZ, so this was a major disapointment!! After calibration (using a colorimeter) the screen looked much better (although I still wish it was higher res)....see attached pictures for a before and after calibration.

The UGLY
I ordered the laptop with a silver keyboard, not because I liked the silver, but because I thought the inside of the computer was silver colored....An easy mistake to make considering that every time I clicked on an image of the SZ, it was a different configuration of the laptop. When you custom order, the primairy image shows the laptop with a dark palmrest (and external antenna)...when you click on keyboard color option, both images show the palmrests as silver....whatever happened to WYSIWYG!!! Long story short...the laptop came with an attractive dark palmrest and a cheap looking, spray painted silver keyboard.....This thing would have looked out of place on a Fisher Price toy but on a laptop of this quality ARE YOU KIDDING!!!. The keys are actually rough feeling and the silver has a straight from the spray can feel about it..... I immediately called to see if they could change out the keyboard, which they couldn't, so I have ended up returning the notebook & ordering a new one with black keys....Even if the inside had been silver, the keyboard was of such poor quality, I still would have sent it back & to think that this was a $30 OPTION! See attached picture

The bloatware that ships with the computer is mind boggling....The box was proud to announce that there was over $30 worth of software installed....I would have paid $50 extra to get this cr@p off the machine...... AOL toolbars installed on IE explorer, sonic trialware, norton trialware....various crap from AOL, Napster, etc. etc. etc. the wallpaper was a screen grab from Spider man.....OMG even the palmrest had a label suggesting I purchase Location free TV hardware & to persuade a little more....you guessed it Location free TV software was preinstalled.....In reality the only way to go is to completely wipe th HD and do a clean install.

Would I recommend the laptop...Well I ordered a replacement, so Yes....Just don't get the silver keyboard, & put a lot of time aside to get rid of all the junk on the machine.

 

That keyboard definitely looks cheap and ugly.

 

i think the silver keyboard looks better with the silver palmrest

 

That silver was and always will be trash trash trash... I've said it before and I'll say it again. They need to do away with every piece of silver anything on the SZ model. Go all black. Heck, somehow they need to just make a 13.3 inch version of the TZ model. THAT is a good looking laptop (just too small/weak etc. for me).

And all that "bloatware" everyone keeps whining about, can't that all just be uninstalled in half an hour? Toolbars aren't that difficult to uninstall.

If it comes with no disks at all, how are you supposed to do a clean reformat?

 

Now that would be a nice laptop!

 

What spin. Sony advertises $30 of free bloatware when in reality the bloatware makers are paying Sony to include it on their system.
This is too big a revenue stream for Sony to ignore. Sorry peeps.

 

It should be lowering prices, so I don't really care. Then again, I am happy to format and install the programs that I want.

 

So, there is a difference in quality between the silver and black keyboards on all SZs??

 

I have owned both keyboards on the SZ. While I agree the black is slightly more attractive the Silver keyboard is easier to see in the dark, when typing using the screen as the only source of light. IMO, I prefer the silver keyboard for the better night typing and the fact that everyone has the black keyboard. I like the fact that we get a choice also.