SZ160 Poorly Made

I am totally amazed! I walked into Frys tonight and walked out with my new SZ160.

After waiting forever llike everyone else, I went in to play with and see the floor demo. Boy was I disappointed! How long could it have been there, a week? It had 4 broken keys! The flat keyboard flexes when you type and the mouse buttons feels like cheap plastic and are kinda loose. Even the sides seem to wobble if you move them in your fingers.

When they said they had 1, I bought it figuring better to have it and return it then passing and waiting another month or two when I decide I do want it.

I am curious what you have experienced with the quality, am I crazy or is this thing super expensive and really poorly built?

By the way, don't bother calling and asking if they have one, they will say no. I went anyway and there it was!

 

Krav -

I spoke to the department manager at Fry's. The damaged keys were the result of intentional wrong doers - the jerk(s). By the way, it doesn't require much effort to pick the keys off any laptop.

As to your other observations - most ultrapotables are a bit fragile. But in the case of the SZ I find that the aluminum palmrest is very solid and rigid, the razor-thin carbon fiber screen can be flexed but is amazingly strong, and the touch pad is very sturdy - all in all I think the SZ is soild and well put together.

Of course, you can always check out the Thinkpads or Toughbooks if you need a more rugged instrument.

 

Thanks Timeclockmind

 

i went to the sonystyle retail store yesterday and the sz keyboard looks plastic like and very cheap..compared it side by side with the tx series which looks CLASSY....why would they do this to us? the keyboard alone looks terrible in an otherwise superb package

 

Well, the reason it looks plastic-like is because it is made from a plastic material. ALL keyboards are made from plastic. I am curious though, what about the keyboard makes you think it looks cheap?

 

It's already been mentioned many times that keyboard feels very cheap, but you get used to it very fast. I've been using my SZ110 for about a week and I already forgot that there are better keyboards out there, but beware, once you try another keyboard you will get that "cheap" feeling again.

 

Hey Klas how would you rate your SZ110 against your Fujitsu 6231?

 

Oh man... I am so hung up on wanting this SZ160 so bad and being so disappointed in the "perceived" quality issues. It is just so much $$ to spend to have that sick feeling in your gut like you just paid a fortune for a toyota! (No offense toyota owners)

I am about to go return it and look at the Fujitsu's again.

Anyone have any opinions?

 

screen, keyboard are top notch, also build quality is better. feels a lot more solid. I couldn't find any drawbacks and it still performs flawlessly. If fujitsu will make wide 13 inch with dedicated graphics I would switch in a heartbeat.

 

Wow, think I need to take a ride to the notebook shop this morning and have a look at Fuji....

 

Sorry, but this doesn't make sense. Why on earth would you pay full price for a floor display that has been damaged? Didn't you bother checking it before buying?

I really don't understand your posts - sorry.

 

return it and get an asus build quality is awesome

 

LOL Werck.... I didn't buy the floor model! It just made a huge negtive impression on me. As I was looking at it, the salesman found a NEW one in stock and I bought it. Now I can't decide if I should keep it and be happy I got one or give in to my uncertainty and return it.

 

fujitsu x-bright equivalent screens are awesome, although resolution is a bit low

 

In that case, I'm not sure why the floor model would change your mind. I've tested dozens of floor models that froze, were dead, have buttons missing, and fractured screen once even!

Seriously, if it's that much of a concern for you, just return it. I'm sure someone else would be more than happy to take it off of you.

 

I originally was going to wait for an ASUS W3J as well, especially due to the rather unimpressive response to the SZ 110-140. But after the raves about the better screen and lighter weight on the SZ160, I'm sold. There's no way an ASUS would ever be anywhere near as light yet powerful. And I don't play much games, so the x1600 is useless - and it eats more battery life too!

It was a no-contest for me. Until ASUS gets serious about making something truly portable, I'm going to get the premium SZs and be happy.

Of course, I just ordered mine, so maybe I'll hate it when I receive it

 

Well let me tell you that I was too waiting for the W3J. But my last laptop was a Dell 700M and I LOVED the portibility.

I can tell you with full confidence you will be happy with your SZ160. I love mine and it is super light. It is lighter than my 700M and after about 4 hours of nonstop use on my lap in front of the tv there was no heat at all. Nothing.

It is awesome.

 

I love my sz160 too - and I find the build quality really good and solid - its a sexy sexy beast! As far as the keyboard, the key for me (no pun intended) is not the keys themselves but the travel of the keys down - the travel on the SZ160 is great - very deep - way deeper than my old S260. To each his own.

The only thing to watch out for is that its 2x512mb chips of ram, not 1x1gig chip as they expressly told me - I'm in a battle with Sony now to credit me for them so I can buy my own replacement 1x1gig chip - their price from their sales department to sell me back the lgig chip? $599!!!!!!!! too funny I laughed on the phone and even their tech person laughed along with me.

~r

 

Isn't the memory controller Dual Channel? If you go with a single 1Gb stick, you'll likely take a performance hit, right?

 

Is the 2 x 512 RAM in the sz160 from store bought 160's or from SonyStyle?

I know Sony has differnt internal designations for store shipped, business sales and their own online models (B, P/C, etc). Everything on Sony's sites seem to point at their laptops having one 1gb chip?

Can people with online SonyStyle 160's and Store (not sony stores) bought 160's comment on what memory they have?

 

Actually that's a very good point. It basically *has* to be dual chips (no one is going to sell a dual channel system operating in single channel mode).

 

I had already bought the 2nd 1gig chip before getting the lappy - that's why I'm doubly pissed at 'em ...I'm optimistic that they'll work it out with me and give me a good enough credit to get another 1gig chip on my own - its only like $130-140 bucks to make a customer who waited so long for the thing to get here and is so far a happy customer with this thing.

~r