sony sz650n/c deal from yahoo merchant

$1763, no tax (!) if you're not in NYC. 16 bucks for ground shipping, $40 for Priority. This is the best deal I've found so far. Any other recommendations?

http://store.acsestore.com/sovanovgt7222.html

 

That is a great deal...I purchased my SZ680N03 from Portable One, which has the same specs as you are showing, but they sell it for $1849 premodded and with 1GB of memory to start off with. They do offer free shipping, no taxes, their own tech support and service center - which all of their work is covered by Sony, and they provide you with clean install disks free of bloatware in addition to removing all of the bloatware on your computer before you receive it. That, in addition to them checking everything out (screen-wise, glitches, etc) is worth the little extra in my opinion.

I ordered mine with a 160GB 7200RPM HD instead of the 120GB 5400RPM, which avoided me the hassle of reinstalling the OS later on when I upgraded it myself. I did however upgrade to the 4GB of memory on my own (easiest upgrade to any laptop/computer...save the cash and do it yourself).

But that is a good buy...if you don't plan on immediately changing hard drives or expect to need good customer service or tech support (Sony will leave you out in the cold on this part of the deal) then it looks like the way to go to save $250 on an identical setup (Sonystyle is even more expensive).

Good find, it's tempting to return mine and buy another one from this site, even though I have a nice, clean setup from P1 with no bloatware whatsoever. I highly recommend the SZ6, especially at that price. And even if you encounter a bad screen or any problems, it's worth swapping it out until you end up with a perfect unit (they do exist, contrary to some members who are upset with their SZs). Mine originally had a defective screen (with the yellow and dark blue banding), but P1 called me up and informed me that they were swapping it out because it failed their in-house criteria...so I never even had to deal with Sony tech support and sending it back and forth to be worked on - my $250 worth of no frustration.

 

ebay is cheaper, brand new with warranty $1700 shipped usually, maybe a bit less for the sz650

i just got my SZ660 whcih is the same as sz650 (t7500, 2.0ghz, 2gb, 160gb) but it has Sprint HSDPA wwan built in - for $1501 shipped off ebay - and yes, i got lucky

 

Totally right.

Thanks for the input from both of you. Just ordered mine off of eBay for $1699.99 + $30 shipping + $5 insurance, 14-day return policy and factory warranty. I checked with a previous customer and they were very happy with their sz650n/c purchase from the same buyer.

I did a Buy It Now so I'm fine with paying $1735 instead of bidding for a better deal in a regular auction.

 

Here's a better deal for anyone looking -- 3 available:

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Sealed-Sony...yZ140084QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

I wouldn't buy a Sony laptop from a random website in a million years.

(1) Is there a company name on the site?

Barely - you have to hunt around for it.

(2) Are there reviews for the site on reseller ratings?

No.

(3) Are they in New York/New Jersey, home of discount fly by nite importers and assorted lowlife camera dealers that also dabble in laptops?

Yes.

(4) What's their return and warranty policy?

Computer systems are "not acceptable for credit, refund, or exchange"

(5) Are they listed as a Sony dealer on http://b2b.sony.com/?

No

If you pull up their address in Google Maps and look at the street view, it shows a tiny store called Advanced Computer Source. What makes you think that they are getting some special deals on Sony laptops that nobody else can get?

The same goes for some random company selling Sony on eBay. In general, there's no magic secret to selling Sony products cheap, because their dealers typically buy from the same price list. Either these guys are giving money away (unlikely), trying to con you into buying something expensive as an accessory and losing your order if you don't (the typical New York camera scam) or selling grey market imports with no warranties (also popular with the New York guys).

Is it worth saving a couple of hundred bucks? My Vaio has been back to Sony three times for repairs. If I'd had the warranty challenged because I'd bought it from some random place, I'd be out of luck. I'm not saying Sony challenge warranties like this, but plenty of vendors sure do. Not worth the hassle in my opinion.

 

We had some credit card fraud issues on SZ6's some credit card/identity thieves hit us with, if anyone would be so kind to somehow get us/verify serial numbers on those ebay auctions etc we will reward you if any match the 5 we were ripped off; 1 x SZ660, 2 x SZ640's, 1 x SZ650 & 2 x SZ670's.

 

1) Yes, fully visible where expected in the About box.

2) Yes, it's a Yahoo merchant. They are also on PriceGrabber.

3) Point. I don't know much about NYC!

4) Manufacturer warranty.

Everything looks "tiny" on Google maps... if they do most of their business online then they probably don't need a big physical presence either.

Sony always has a lot of discounts for customers, so I'm not surprised if retailers can get bigger ones. For example, anyone who's an employee with a company that does business with Sony can usually get at least 10% discount direct from Sony. If you sign up for the Sony Card scam, you can get another 100 bucks back.

You're 100% correct that it's worth doing your homework before your purchase though. Thanks a lot for your input!

 

What's the reward? Do we get to keep our laptop purchased in good faith? Can you post the serial numbers? I'm not going to send my serial number out to anyone...

 

Yes, already trying to get NBR to help make a database where people and dealers can post lost/stoeln items, see below:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=177156

Just getting hit with 5 frauders on 5 machines takes selling hundreds of units to make up for it and companies are going out of business left and right because of it, ever wonder what happened to MileStonePC - credit card frauders!