Keep or Toss Sony Z220/b from 2006

I have a pretty opinionated question here so I'll give you my situation. I'm in the military and obviously deployments are NOT the best environment for a laptop however this laptop will not die!! I was considering tossing it out and getting a new one as the fans are making some odd noises/not working but the rest of the laptop is still limping along. I don't need a speed demon on deployment but I wanted to hear your thoughts on whether I should just go ahead and buy another laptop (it wouldn't be a sony z at this point...too much money) or whether I should spend a couple hundred bucks and repair this one. Here's a list of the parts that I would need to "restore" this champ.

Cpu Fan (making some weird noises)

the other fan stopped working a long time ago I think....if there is two fans on it. I'm not sure but it definitely started running hotter a year ago or so. I just put a laptop cooler on it and left it at that.

new HD (just to improve performance a little)
new wireless card (perhaps the 633 ultimate n card since I will have the laptop all apart to repair it anyway

Keyboard (a couple of the supports are broken and it pops up from time to time)

extra wireless antenna (for the ultimate 633 card)

honestly that's it. Everything else still works like a champ on it. I run a Win7/Linux Mint dual boot on her and I still do not have problems running any programs at all.

Just tell me your thoughts and maybe an estimate of how much the parts would cost. BTW this laptop has survived more than 8 deployments.

 

I can't give you a cost estimate but I can say that if you're happy with the machine -- keep it. Don't chase after some shiny new machine that you may not like as much, you're not used to, and may not last as well under harsh conditions. The fixes and upgrades sound like they should be relatively minor. Go with what you know works for you.

Have a safe mission.

 

If you have the time to fix it, i'd go that route, but we're a Sony fanboi forum, so we'll always side with keeping it vs going to another brand

if you don't have time to fix it or just want something else to try, you should be able to easily sell it, I'd be interested in it

 

I found all of the parts that I needed. Looks like even with upgrades to the wireless and hd.....cost is around 300-400 bucks. That would be the cost of a bottom barrel laptop...but I've seen what happens to those on deployment. I just wish I could get a battery that would last longer. Seems like they go out in about 2 years. Thanks for the advice everyone. I think at least this thing will make one more deployment before I use it for target practice lol.

 

You could sell it on ebay as a VAIO Z2 and get $5k for it, just hide that "S"

Kind of wish I still had my SZ. It was fairly indestructible, well, at least until I sent it to Sony via BestBuy to get the DVD drive fixed. It came back with a warped screen and a bulge where the new DVD drive went.

After some complaining, they let me get a new machine with the same specs or lower. In my case, that was the TZ which actually cost @ $1k more due to it being tiny. Less RAM and slower CPU

 

Yeah thank God for the "chic" aluminum on this thing. Still don't know where the little dohicky antenna went but I never used it for broadband anyway. Mine only has the 1.8 duo and I remember that you could order 2.3 or something like that for it. Maybe I could still find one of those too since I'm going to be ripping this thing apart and cleaning/repairing it.

 

Have you considered a second hand panasonic toughbook? I used to have one on my old job. Used it to stop muggers. Nice peice of kit.

 

The current Dell Latitudes are a bit on the spendy side, but are built to mil-spec and should hold up a lot better than the consumer-grade laptops you typically find in big box stores. It may be worth considering if you think about upgrading...