open box vaio fw hi-color on the cheap but worth it?

for $930 i think know if the warranty is lost cause it's open box, you think it's worth it?

 

Do you need the hi-color? What are your plans for the FW?

 

i'm coming from a qosmio with a double lamp and think the ones in the stores aren't quite bright enough
i'll do photoshop and web programming mainly

i guess i'm just a little more concerned if i'm risking anything and warranty

 

I don't believe there are any global QC issues that you would need to worry about, for instance a defect that the prior owner had noticed and returned as a lemon. (There is the hi-color screen dark area issues, but you should be able to check that before purchase).

I'm not sure who is a good candidate for open box merchandise. I assume one would want to have enough funds available so that they could fix or replace the machine if something went wrong. On the other hand, if they had that kind of money to buy a machine twice, they would be better suited to buying new in the first place?

I guess it all comes down to manufacturers gambling with warranties. Obviously manufacturers have statistics that indicate warranties on open box items would not be in their favor so they are not willing to do it. That's a pretty good indication to the buyer of what may be in store for them.

 

I contacted sony support through chat on their website, I was told that newegg is not an authorised seller for sony, BUT, the original warranty would not be void, it would continue but it was effective from the original date of purchase. That was reliving, but as far as extending the warrenty, i would have to call sales and ask them if they would do it on an open box. I'm probably not going to extend it anyway.

I don't see why it wouldn't have it, but there's a slight chance the adaptor and power cord are not included. The newegg rep told me, basically what ever was put back in the box when it was returned should be in there but there's no guarantee . He said i can return it and ge the stocking waived by calling them. If that part is all fine i'll just have to be sure to stress it for the first 14 days before my return period expires.

I'm assuming that the returns are from people who were dissapointed that the hd wasn't the 200gb 7200 rpm that was advertized.
I think i might be able to even live with a dead pixel.

well i took the plunge, it probably won't get to me till wed or thurs next week.
I'm be impatiently waiting and report back.

 

Nice! So if something is wrong with the machine... hrmmm, doesn't look like it shipped with the adapter! Hope you got the name of the rep that quoted you that no restock thing.

Good luck Banana!

 

he said just call newegg and since it's already an open box item it won't be a problem to waive it especially since it would be inoperable without it.
i checked and it said it's shipping from cali today so if i'm lucky it'll get in on tuesday

 

you lucky SOB, i'd kill for that price!

 

haha, i was nervous to post cause i thought instead of replying people would buy it and i'd be **** out of luck,
they have another model now for the same price, no hi-color but bluray
i was nervous when i saw that thinking they're gonna send me that one instead but i checked my emails and it had the right model

 

That's strange. Why would newegg have an open box laptop? I thought they don't accept returns of laptops, no exceptions.

 

maybe it's because of the wrong hard drive issue they let people return it, but then again there's another open box model on there now

 

I GOT IT TODAY!!!

and despite the ****ty packing job everything looks good,
i wiped everything down with a mild antibacterial detergent, who knows what the last person did with this thing, i know what i'm doing it tonight haha.
there were no disc in the box, was it supposed to come with it?

my screen does have the tunnelling effect you can see it when its an all black screen.

so far compared to my very old qosmio, it runs A LOT cooler, my qosmio runs at about 150 F on a regular basis even when idle, i'll take photos to compare later, i'm not sure which has a better screen yet. this thing is sexy though, the only part i don't like so far is t he speaker grill and buttons, i think that kinda kills the computer

 

No disc, only thing that comes with it is the power adapter, and about 5 small pamphlets (mostly entirely useless pamphlets).
You will want to burn yourself some recovery discs right away. Only thing I am questioning, if the prior owner deleted some of the crapware, along with maybe something you may have wanted, is all of those deleted items still available in the recovery partition.. or is it deleted from there as well?

Mine too, but viewing pictures I hardly notice it, and after working with mine for a few days, I don't even consider it a problem. If it was a fixable defect, or others were getting better screens upon exchaning, I'd look into it. But as of now, I don't think I care.

That must be one heck of a screen on the qosmio.
I don't mind the buttons and grill, even though there are certainly better looking alternatives out there.

One thing that that others have mentioned and I didn't understand would be a problem for me was the placement of the USB ports. I disregarded, but once I unpacked my FW, I immediately noticed what they were talking about. Oh well, I'm thinking USB or E-SATA ports on a PCI card might be cheap, and that would give me ports on the left- away from exactly where my mouse is.

 

well when i started it vista ran as if it were the first time, so i'm assuming it was restored. There was a bunch of crapware, and i'm still trying to figure out what to delete, not sure what it all does or if sony actually has any useful software on there.
I didn't know you can actually see what's on the recovery partition. so it's actually worth keeping? I guess better than losing the disc and kicking myself in the *** later.

you know what, i only seem to notice it when it's a black screen or the screen saver is on, right now i don't think it will be a big problem. the colors are definitly different from my last laptop, possibly even brighter, i'm gonna do a whole comparison thread over the weekend when i have time.

Well it's not the screen that gets hot, it's the rest of the body, the program i was using was saying the hd was at 59c most of the time and either the gpu or cpu at 79c, i'll get a screen shot of that later (on the qosmio not the fw)0

you know i barely use any ports on my laptop so i don't think it'll be an issue, i guess an eSata would've been nice for backing up things though. Glad it has the firewire for the rare cases where i might do some video editing.