Sony vs Asus vs Lenovo??

I'm in need of buying a new laptop very soon. I've heard the new Sandy Bridge laptops will be available in the market by the end of March onward. I have an eye on Sony Vaio SB laptop (the most desirable laptop at the moment) but quite hesitating myself when comparing it with another higher spec lappy at cheaper price. I'm not quite sure whether the Vaio is the one for me that can suits my needs and lifestyle. I plan to use the new one for the next 3-4 years. I'm a web designer/programmer which always have many programs opened and in used at least 3-4 apps running at the same time: Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Apache, MySQL, and etc. but not very much into gaming except Sims. Please help me decide and recommend which one should I go for. My budget is under £1,000: the cheaper with higher spec, the better.

The specs I like about Vaio SB1V9E are:
- Lightweight, ultraportable
- Long life battery
- Island keyboard
- LED backlight
- 3G built-in
- Dedicated graphics card (512MB a bit of a drag)
- Sandy Bridge Core i5
- USB 3.0
- 2 Years warranty as a standard in the UK at the moment
- Fingerprint

The key features I need for my laptop are (all are A MUST)
- Windows 7
- Minimum 500GB SATA HDD
- Minimum 4GB RAM
- Less than 2 kgs in total weight (including battery)
- 13-14" screen
- Ultraportability, slim and sleek design (minimalistic)
- Island keyboard (I have a thing for this style of the keyboard)
- Built-in webcam
- Bluetooth, Wifi
- Card reader
- Could handle sophisticated games, graphic, and other jobs with no problem.
- USB 3.0
- Black or dark grey color

- Blu-Ray (bonus feature)
- 3G built-in (bonus feature)
- Bluetooth 3.0 (bonus feature)

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The list of the laptops I have an eye on:
Sony Vaio SB19VE: £950 >> (Core i5-2410M Turbo Boost, 4GB DDR3, 500GB, AMD Radeon HD 6470M + Intel HD Graphic, Fingerprint, WWAN, 1.75kg)
Pro: It has everything I need especially ultraportability which doesn't have to compromise with
an optical drive and ports. Battery max to 14 hours with extra battery sheet.
Con: Price, graphic card.

Asus U36JC: £650-£700 >> (Core i5-480M, 4GB, 500GB, NVIDIA 310M with 1GB DDR3, 8 cell battry, 1.6kg)
Pro: Lightweight (a bit lighter than Vaio), sleek design, keyboard, and 8 cell battery life.
Con: No optical drive, a bit pricey for this spec comparing with other brands, and NOT a Sandy Bridge.

Asus N53SV: £837 >> (Core i7-2630QM Quad Core, 8GB, 640GB, NVIDIA GT 540M with 1GB DDR, Blu-Ray HD Play back, Bang & Olufsen ICEpower Stereo Speakers, 2M Integrated Webcam, 2.9 kgs)
Pro: Processor Core i7 Sandy bridge, Blu-Ray, GPU, Stereo speakers, 2 megapixels webcam.
Con: Very heavy and large, I hate its keyboard (should have been an island keyboard style like in Bamboo but I hate the design of the Bamboo collection), 15.6" lappy.

Asus K43SV >> Not out yet (Not sure when)
Lenovo V470 >> Will be out in May 2011 (cannot wait that long, I'm afraid)

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Which one would you recommend or else?

 

you could try the thinkpad edge e420s, specs as of now:

CPU: i3 from i5
GPU: intel HD 3000
Weight: 1.8kg

I hear the keyboard is good. Its selling in the US for 699, dunno about UK

 

One Vote for Sony

No experience with Asus.
Lenovo is kind of a strange deal... The quality varies quite a lot throughout models...

 

What about Acer 3820TG or 3830TG that should be coming out in a week or 2.
It has all the pros of the SB w/o the cons, only con is the lack of ODD but you don't seem to need it.

You should be able price the SB for less than £900 depending on whether you want a WWAN or not.

https://shop.sony.co.uk/shop/ipc/di...cCharGroupName=$BASE_GROUP&isHideActive=)/.do

 

Acer is a very different class manufacturer than Sony, Asus and Lenovo..... not sure he would want that.....

 

How are they different though? I can see difference with Sony but Asus and Lenovo?? I mean, Acer is the 2nd largest notebook manufacturer in the world...

 

quantity|=quality

However the last timelinex line was with a good construction, but it was riddled with flex

 

Why is 512MB a drag? You realize that's just video buffer memory and not actually indicative of performance right? The 2010 MBP 15" has a 330M w/ 256MB VRAM and that clocks faster than the 6470 on the SB you're talking about above. That 330M also is a faster clocked part than the 330M in the Vaio Z which has 1GB VRAM.

 

Agreed with Gracy123, been there, done that. Been used 2 Acer laptops: the first costs me around £1,200 and the second around £800, failed me totally and completely. 1st Acer, HDD failed one month after warranty had just finished. The 2nd was sent to Acer repairing centre and came back with a new motherboard after 3-4 months of purchasing and the last time, with the same machine the motherboard has just died on me AGAIN after 2 months warranty finished. Then no more Acer please.

 

HDD failure is not their problem. The mobo is.

Since the op practically stated that he doesnt need a dedicated gpu, I would go for the lenovo, being cheaper, and that magnesium alloy is pretty sturdy from what I can see from what has been released now.

 

I'd go for the Sony. A very good all-rounder.

 

I vote for Sony.

 

the only thing good about asus is their G series, if youre gonna buy anything other than that. dont. especially the U36jc.

 

As already mentioned - second largest or even the largest means nothing

Fiat is also a large manufacturer, but can you compare it to Audi or BMW?
You know how small Jaguar is as a manufacturer, don't you

I've also been there (learned why some brands are called "cheap" the hard way), that's why I would advise to stay away from brands like Acer, unless you need a laptop for a week or month only

 

Found this one on sale now for £500, half the price of SB series (but pretty heavy though: 2.7 kg -- is it possible to carry it around with this weight the whole day?). What do you think about this Vaio?

Brand: Sony VPCEE3Z0E/BQ
Primary Drive: Blu-ray/DVDRW
Processor Type: AMD Phenom™ II Triple-Core Processor P840
Features: 10/100 LAN Card, Operating System, USB, WiFi Enabled Processor Speed: 1900Mhz
Hard Drive : 500GB
Display Size: 15.5
Screen Size: 15.5TFT
Memory (RAM): 6GB

 

Once you try SONY SB, u will never want to spend a sec and look into ASUS's
I bought a N43 before....the quality is low and cheap. Screen is extreme crappy. The overal external design is ugly.

Sony SB is well engineered inside and outside, it has as good looking as MBP, but it has much cooler temp on keyboard. It's serisouly a joy to use sony SB.
Because, it will never heat up on keyboard, palmrest, etc (it does get hot from base, but who care unless you put it on your leg)
The only con for SB is the screen, the screen is so average.......but it's okay.
It's $200 cheaper than MBP but less noise and 1000 times cooler

 

There's really only a limited number of OEM notebook manufacturers out there. They all more or less come from the same source and notebook manufacturing process is not all that high tech.

If you go to all the forums, you'll see complains about Sony, Toshiba, Lenovo, as you would with Acer.. when you look at sub USD500 notebooks for example, no matter waht brand you choose, you'll get the similar result since low cost is the main concern. Higher end, you'll get much better product and this applies to all manufacturers. Acer just doesn't go that high. But for the range that OP is looking at.. you'll not see too great of a variation.

 

Sorry... I consider myself quite experienced with different brands and class laptops (not only personal but numerous company machines) and definitely do not share your opinion. Of course there are different quality lines among models of the same manufacturer and of course there are problems with every single brand and model in this world - there is nothing perfect!

But chances are you will end up with more issues and sooner with brands like Acer, MSI, Fujitsu-Siemens, etc. than brands like Lenovo, Sony, Toshiba, Apple.

I learned it the hard way too. I also once thought - who cares about brand, it means nothing. Well.... You see me investing in Sony now... and there is a reason for that, believe me!

It's all about statistics and chances:


My personal experience pretty much corresponds to the above chart. I have absolutely no idea about Asus as I have never used one, but I would only swap the places of Sony and Toshiba, the rest looks quite right to me, according to all I have experienced.

 

In my experience, even when cheap, Acer is over priced.
They may look similar and have similar components, but they don't last.
They use cheaper plastics, cheaper capacitors, cheaper engineering, cheaper...

They have to save that money somewhere.
I don't have a single customer who after having moved on to a Sony, Toshiba, or Asus, looked back favorably at their Acer. It's hard to find a former HP user among them who was all that happy either.

Take a relatively high end Acer and compare it to a low end Sony, then fast forward three years, I can tell you right now which one will be in better condition.



Lenovo, unless you are buying an X or T series, pass.

Asus, are good value for the money, but remember not to compare it to a several hundred dollar more Sony. Like Acer, Asus has to cut money somewhere to make their price points, often it's a slightly louder fan, or cheaper display. Nothing that really hurts longevity, but does hurt it in terms of plushness.

Sony has terrible support worldwide.
Asus has bad support in the UK (so I have heard), but it's good in the US.


Take a look at the Toshiba R700 and R705 series, that may fit the bill for the OP. You will want the more expensive model to get Bluetooth. I've used this, and if I had to replace my SZ today, it would probably be my choice based on price/performance/quality. It's not the latest and greatest, but it's a solid notebook that will do what you need. The 13in category isn't exactly brimming with good options, especially well priced ones.

 

I don't want to take this argument too far OT, so I'll keep this short, you realize that your stats, Lenovo is not too much better than Acer? Acer pretty much makes mid/low range laptops so higher defects is expected.

Plus, I do not consider Lenovo a "high end" brand at all. It's pretty much a Chinese laptop manufacturer that bought the Thinkpad brand from IBM, that's it.

So, just stick with Asus and Sony then I guess.

 

A matter of personal choice and experience One day you will realize why you should NOT buy cheap brands.... (because they actually are the more expensive solution down the road)

But let's not get carried away, just shared my opinion and experience and you yours.

 

i'd go with gracy123 to not stick with cheap brands, though i wouldnt go with the graph however as asus shouldnt really be up there next to toshiba and sony

 

I have actually owned laptops from three companies so I can give you a decent opinion on them:

Sony (Z11) - Sony makes the most amazingly advanced customized laptops especially in the high end laptop world. I own the Z11 and the fact that they are assembled in either Japan or the US should give you a hint. If you've ever seen teardowns of their laptops you begin to realize that there a a tonne of custom parts. At the time of the Z11's release there was pretty much no laptop on the market that could really hold a candle to it for it's combination of weight, power and ability. However in Canada, Sony's laptop repair service is a dismal failure. They want $300 just to look at your laptop for repairs and being such a highly customized system, all the parts are expensive. Although Sony laptops are durable, pray you never break it.

Asus (Z33ae) - Asus laptops are assembled in Taiwan but they are well designed and they use typically more standard parts. Although Asus does attempt some advanced designs, they are not as insanely advanced as Sony laptops. Normally they are built to be easily serviced as well. Many Asus laptops come with accidental 1 year coverage (don't forget to register for it). This means that even if you break your laptop due to your own fault, they will fix it for you for free first time, no questions asked. They seem geared for the enthusiast market because say you discover that your laptop hard drive failed. They are willing to save you money by allowing you to swap your own hard drive provided you know what you're doing of course versus mailing the entire laptop in. Back in the early days of this program, I broke my Asus when I spilled a few drops of water on it frying my keyboard. They generously sent me a free keyboard part despite being out of warrenty for free! Asus is most well known in the enthusiast market for making quality motherboards.

Toshiba - Toshiba appears to use very generic parts in the laptop to the point of using the exact same case in many of their laptops. If you don't believe me check them out in the stores, it's really hard to tell one Toshiba laptop from another if those stickers weren't on it. XD I find them very generic and reliable. Not sure of how good their repair service is but I have found their laptops to be very reliable. Still with such a bland looking laptop you're not going to be bragging to anyone at all about it but on the bright side, it does what it does.

 

My problem really is more with Lenovo being considered a high end brand, which it definitely is not.

 

The company I work at is completely based on Lenovo laptops and I must say - their T series are indestructible!! Yes it's heavy, yes it's ugly.... but it has the strength of an industrial machine!! I would never do even 30% to my own laptop (no matter what brand), of what my Lenovo T400 has experienced! And it is still alive and doing its job. The only damage I've seen to a T (I think T60) was a cosmetic plastic peace breaking off after a 2m (!) drop on asphalt!! A few small scratches and that's it. The notebook is still in use.

You try that with Acer No faster way to disassemble each part and each screw

On the other hand I do agree that the quality has dropped a little bit with T410 for example but they are still very, very durable!

So in this manner - yes, I do consider Lenovo a premium brand, even if it is based only on their T series only, which is enough as it is their main line!

 

Yeah, their Thinkpad series are based more on the old IBM design so it's as expected and I agree. But since the OP is considering the Ideapads, that's a different story.

 

6lb for a laptop, plus depending on if you're going to carry around the power cables as well will be up to 8lb. While that's not all that much weight.. it will wear on you.

For all day portability, I would really suggest anything under 4lb, about 1.8kg. Anything over I would consider on the bulky side for travel. A PITA if you're rushing to catch a flight and stuff.

 

Less experience with Ideapad... can't really argue.

But the Thinkpads do make Lenovo a premium Brand IMO. Of course each line has pros and cons - I would never buy Lenovo T myself for a few reasons (such as poor display quality, heavy, edgy, big, ugly ...) but if I were to buy laptops for employees - definitely Lenovo T.

 

Asus u36 or Vaio Z or S.

I personally like the asus u36 more due to the battery life and optimus graphics.

I like the vaio Z due to its screen resolution, weight, anti-glare screen, lightup keyborad, cd rom drive, ssd.

Ultimately, I chose the vaio z because it was on sale.

 

Hmmm a good example how different people have different expectations from laptops so a decision is very individual

Just my opinion on the above point to demonstrate the difference:

* Battery life - As long as it is >2h, I don't give a damn whether it is 4, 7 or 11h. I have electricity everywhere I ever go and as long as they can't offer me say 1 week battery life so that I can leave the charger at home when going on a trip - I pretty much don't care. Not a camping kind of person.

* Hybrid Graphics - Agree. A nice feature.

* Screen resolution on 13" screen.... hmmm a knife with 2 blades. Many people prefer a native resolution allowing them to actually read without glasses Depends on usage scenario though... again.

* Weight - yes... kind of important... but as long as it is less than 2kg - fine by me...

* Matte screen - I definitely prefer glossy screens, can't stand the grainy image matte displays give. Once upon a time I had to pay extra to have "Crystal View" glossy screen. And although I never ever had problems with reflections on my current (glossy) screen, the best thing is you can always make a glossy screen go matte (with a filter), whereas the opposite isn't possible...

* Good keyboard - yes, quite important, especially for office use...

* DVD-Rom - Ah? Was that the thing our parents used to put some round things in before they invented USB sticks and memory cards?? Joking of course, but yes - I almost never use mine... wouldn't care much if the laptop came without one.

* SSD - not a factor at all. One can swap the HDD with SSD any time.


Listed the above just as a "visualization" how different users' views and needs can be, even if they like pretty much the same stuff

 

Completely agree with Gracy in that Thinkpads are indestructible, but the biggest problem is where they put the CTRL and FN buttons! I'd happily get myself a Thinkpad if it wasn't for that...

In the bigger argument:

Sony - the high range ones come with superb build quality and components. I own 3 (TR5MP, SZ4MN, YA15FG) and all three are excellent machines, with brilliant displays and great features. In the main I try to stay away from mid-to-low range machines as I am a believer that not all silicon is the same even where they are called the same.

Asus - I only own one (G1Sn from their gaming range) but as a gaming machine it also is high spec and has been performing very well, and has proven to be easy to tinker with, as I have a Seagate Momentus XT replacing the HDD, and upped the Merom T5750 to a Penryn T8100.

Lenovo - the Thinkpads for work are excellent, but I have been given a mid-range one to fix that is suffering from the Nvidia defect. They are all big, robust brutes of machines but you can see how much higher quality the Thinkpads are compared to the normal Lenovos.

Other manufacturers:

HP - I have personally owned one, the old ZD7065 from 2002 which is still running extremely well. It's a big, heavy desktop replacement but absolutely no complaints even after 9 years. I have had a few work HPs and a couple of newer home ones which have always started to go faulty (famous Nvidia fault in the TX, green screen lines in others).

Samsung - recently had a chance to play with one. Impressed by the build quality and standard of the machine (RV511), but no long term exposure to it. Unfortunately I have no use for standard machines, as I like ultraportables/thin'n'lights for work, and big desktop replacements for gaming.

Fujitsu - upgraded the OS on one. Was an 80s throwback considering it was a modern C2D machine, with big industrial screws and a tiny 40GB HDD. Haven't seen thick plastic like that since the early Transformers toys!