Stay away from Vaio SZ

After 2 weeks of waiting I received my Sony Vaio SZ120 from the Sony repair facility. I sent it there because of a non-functioning DVD drive and the case falling apart. The laptop came with the hard drive erased, but neither issue fixed. I am supposed to send it back again (and they cannot expedite the processing), but I was warned that if I want the case fixed it will cost me $700 ("cosmetic" damage not being covered by the warranty)!!! (We are talking a tiny plactic tab that holds the side panels of the case being broken.)
Stay away from Sony and their wares.

 

I understand how you feel, but just like with any other manufacturer, you are going to get some lemons. I also have the SZ120 and aside from some very minor annoyances, it has served me well so far. I believe that making a generalization that an entire company or particular model is shoddy all the way across the board is simply unfair. Do a search in almost all of the manufacturers forums here on NBR and you will find at least a few people in each one who are just as angry as you are. But there are also a great number of satisfied owners for every one disgruntled customer. You just don't see them posting because they have nothing to complain about. I will, however, grant you that Sony's warranties do leave much to be desired and in many cases their service is lacking. If the case simply came apart through no fault of your own, I would challenge it as being "a defect in workmanship" rather than their ruling of "cosmetic damage" which implies that you in some way caused the breakage yourself.

 

Of course, I am overly dramatic in my condemnation of the entire company for one faulty unit. But I was mad as hell yesterday (and still quite upset), and had to vent somewhere. What gets me is not the broken laptop - a bad unit can be produced by any company, but the egregious level of their warranty service. I have done some reading on various opinion websites, and Sony always comes out as having one of the worst warranty support services. To me that's enough to avoid their products in the future.