Not many deals on Vaios?

It seems there are hardly any deals or coupons on Vaios these days. Is this normal for Sony or are we just in a "dry period" before Black Friday?

Has anyone ever tried getting a discount on a custom Vaio at a Sony store?

 

I think it's a combination of Sony being Sony with their typical name markup and the fact that black Friday and cyber Monday are just a few weeks away. I'm a few days away from trying to negotiate a CTO Z13, so I'll let you know how that goes. The only big-ticket Sony items I buy are the ones I get discounts on - I refuse to pay Sony's "just-because" markup.

 

On the Z13, that isn't a "just because" markup. It's a "there is no competitor in this size" markup. The m11xr2 arguably comes close, but no dice, once the Sony's display is thrown into the mix.

 

Cool, thanks. Are you ordering online, over the phone or at a Sony store?

 

You're right, a dearth of any deals/coupons right now. There's always the education discount you can use, but they changed that automatic 10% off program from no catches to now requiring to sign up for an extended service plan to get the 10% off.

Sony Student Discount Online Store Gives 10% Off VAIO Products

You can get the discount even if you're not a student last time I checked.

 

any similar program like it for Canada students?

 

Does anyone know what the VPC Z1190 cto was discounted last year on Black Friday and Cyber Monday>? maybe that would be something to gauge it by?

I just ordered one off the outlet.. and a bit concerned that my 30 day return will be up before cyber monday... I would be bummed if they offered a 30% discount..

 

Over the phone. I'm going to give it a few more days so that I'll have the option to return it in the event of Black Friday / cyber Monday sales are substantial.

 

True, but you don't really end up saving anything

 

VPC-Z was released in Feb. 2010...there wasn't any good discount on VGN-Z last BF/Xmas period that I can recall, either.

 

Wow,, that's amazing, that they have had 3 model changes in just 8 months? from 1190 to 1290 and now 1390 .. guess they are just keeping up with the *slightly* new processors intel keeps spitting out.

 

Unfortunately there isn't, but since the U.S. discount basically just gives you 10% off and then charges 10% more for a warranty there's no direct cash savings, but in essence you get a free warranty upgrade.

 

Well, honestly, everybody does this kind of update (maybe not Apple), it's just Sony has this numbering system that highlight the refresh instead of using a somewhat hard-to-understand 4-digit suffix...

Back to the Z itself, actually there were no differences between 1190 and 1290 in terms of the options available. It's just purely the first batch out of factory vs. the second batch.

 

I was at the local Sony shop today, and it didn't sound like they had other deals than the 10% student discount. It seems a bit odd as competitors like Dell, HP, Lenovo etc. always seems to have offers on several models.

 

The prices for EA EB and F are pretty good, it's the Z which has the really evil pricing. But Sony is smart with the hardware configurations, good GPU and CPU options and expresscard slots on almost every laptop, plus bluray since they invented it, and fairly solid build quality. The cost for accessories is twice as much as everyone else though, same with warranty plans, and they only give you 1 lousy year.

 

what warranty? when they make you wait a month to get a replacement for anything?

 

I don't know if they are that good, compared to the deals you can sometimes get on similar notebooks from the competitors.

 

I don't know what its like in the states but right now in the UK I'm not seeing anything in Sony's lineup thats worth the price for admission except Z series and thats only because theres nothing like it right now. It is freakishly expensive considering that in 3 years it will be essentially worthless as all computers are because of the rapid pace at which the technology becomes obsolete.

I was toying around on Dell.co.uk and specced a Studio XPS 16 with a better gfx card, better cpu, better screen plus connectivity and build quality thats just as good as anything in the E and F series range, if not better and it was several hundred pounds cheaper than the closest equivalent F(X)13.

Z series is just too much money to me right now when I know its going to lose value so quickly. I'm fine with spending that kind of money on musical instruments for instance because they don't lose value as quickly as computers do so you can always sell them on, sometimes decades later for close to what you bought them for or in some cases more than what you bought them for. I want a Z series for sure but I definitely don't need one. Your needs may be different to mine but up until recently I was doing reasonably ok with a crummy 5 year old desktop PC so at this point I'm flexible. If I can save a grand I'll happily put up with an extra kilo and the extra couple of inches for the same specs.

With the Z, Sony can pretty much charge what they want because of the number of world firsts that went into it. The first to put a full hd screen into a subnotebook. The first to come up with hybrid graphics. The first to put a Core i5/i7 into a chasis that has a smaller area than an a4 sheet of paper.

They can't claim any of that in the E and F series so it makes the current F13 prices somewhat difficult to stomach when theres plenty good competition out there even if it doesn't have Sony's typically attractive industrial design. If you can do without that you can save alot of money and I say this as a person that really likes Sony's industrial design and as the owner of an F series. All told I don't think its worth it either.

 

Well, I think that here in the states the price for a Vaio E or F is pretty much equivalent of what you pay for a similar spec'ed HP, Dell etc. So they're not really more expensive, but they're not cheaper either, especially if you can get a 200$ coupon on the competition.

 

Sony US are much better with running deals and e-vouchers. I haven't seen a Sonystyle.co.uk e-voucher in over a year.