Sony Z - Is it worth the risk?

I am planning on getting a Sony Z from US for use in Europe. The price benefit is roughly 20-30 %.

Warranty Issue

From what I have been able to gather in the forums is that getting the US warranty to work here is useless, so if something goes wrong I'll have to send it to the US (no, I don't travel to US regularly). Psychologically, maybe also financially, this nullifies the whole 20-30 % benefit I plan to exploit.

So, what has been the general expression with Sony Zs (with respect to the need for warranty/repair)? Did many of you send it in? Is Z series relatively stable, with no/few problems in the long run?

=> Is it worth the pain/risk?

For the financially-minded, I am asking for the volatility in Sony Z to calculate PaR. Sorry, it's 2 in the night here.

 

If you read the fine print on the Sony Style US site, they will not deliver outside the US. They'll accept your order, then place it on hold until you give them a US delivery address or they eventually cancel the order.

If you plan to buy from a vendor, those licensed by Sony as resellers will usually not ship outside the US either.

 

I don't know how you'll be buying the Z, but the solution if everything is legit retail is pretty simple: You have to buy the extended cover and the overseas warranty cover IN THE US. I'm not sure whether you can order the overseas warranty online but I realised this after buying a warranty extension pack away from the US, and after talking to Sony Europe support. They said an overseas warranty + extended warranty purchased and registered in the US would cover me.

You are excused for that 'I don't actually do anything worthwhile in finance, I'm just a ****' aside. Just the once

 

I have no problems with Z whatsoever, looks like a very solid notebook. Couple of people I know (four people to be precise) also own Z models - also, no problems so far.

With regards to US purchase - I am based in Germany currently, and I am almost always buying notebooks either from US or from Japan (my old TZ was from there)

Never had a single problem, and the money savings can be quite substantial especially for the high-end class.

Although, Sony seems to be changing pricing policies compared to the old TZ days where German price was 100% pure rip-off...

 

I thought that you could now get warranty in the UK if you buy a Z from the US. It seems like that is not the case yet.
http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/support-info.pl?info_id=363

I have noticed as well that imported models don't sell as well in the EU market.

Now that Sony is using Gobi wwan you shouldn't have a problem in using the WWAN in the EU.

 

It takes only one problem to make it worthwhile. Personally I cover all my machines. I had the problem I mentioned with the UX390N's warranty when I tried to cover it with a PCGE-VPW2, so when I went back to the US and bought my 490N, I covered all my 390N's while I was at the Sony store too.

And yes, I get it with the reliability of high-end Sony's - no dispute there. I've had one issue each with one SZ, Z and TT notebooks over the last year, all minor (and in rapid succession, although I'm sure that was a coincidence). Compare that to the 100% defect-on-delivery or warranty-requiring fault record between three Crapbook Airs, two unibody Crapbooks, one Penryn Crapbook Pro, two unibody Crapbook Pros, two Penryn 17-inch Crapbook Pros and three 17-inch unibody Crapbook Pros over the last year to date (I could have missed out one or two - and yes, I did/do actually use all of them personally).

While my Sony experiences have been a haven of reliability compared to the Apples, it hasn't been totally free of problems. And although the last one was maybe 5 years ago, lemons aren't totally out of the question either. With the particular problems I've had over the last year, they have been very minor that if I didn't have warranty I could have lived with it - things such as the gravity sensor no longer working properly for example. But it could have been worse.

 

Is it possible to get the laptop from some other vendor, for instance P1, and get the "international" warranty at the sony store as there is no other way to get it (somewhere online)?

Also, do they need the physical laptop at the sony store to give the warranty or could the warranty be taken later (within 1 year of standard warranty) by a friend using the product number in case of need?

Thanks a lot for your input guys!

Vogelbung: did you take all your 390Ns with you when you wanted to get them covered? And how much did this "international" coverage cost?

 

In 2007 I purchased an SZ in Thailand for use in Africa and North America. I was very clear with the vendor that I would most likely not return to Thailand in the foreseeable future. He instructed me to get the international warranty which can only be for 1 year. As for repairs, all I would have had to do was send it to the nearest Sony service area. In Africa this was South Africa, where I did not live. Although I never had an issue which required the use of the warranty, I would do it again.

As for extending the warranty period, as long as the original warranty has not expired, you can extend at any point. For most business travelers, getting the international warranty is a good idea since you may not be able to return to the country of purchase to conduct repairs.

This has been my experience.

 

Sony USA will not be able to deliver laptop outside USA.
If you want to get the warranty and Laptop from USA, you will need someone in USA.
Register the sony product under the name of the people that live in US.
When Your computer is broken, you will be cover under warranty if you use that person name and address otherwise the US warranty will not cover outside USA.