I HATE Sony
I have a Sony Vaio laptop. I bought it in October of 2004 when I was getting paid to teach an undergrad course and could spend money on a computer (I was feeling relatively certain that my other laptop was on its last legs at that point so I went ahead and got the new one while I could afford it.) I really love the Vaio...it has some wonderful features, a spiffy graphics card etc. Unfortunately, I have thus far had to send it back to Sony twice for repairs (both times before October 2005 when the warranty ran out)...once for a new hard drive and once for a new motherboard. I have certainly not been impressed by the quality of the computer. I took the Vaio home with me for Christmas where it sat unused.After I got back from my little travel debacle (see below), I took the laptop out of my bag and set it up to check my email/surf the internet/regale you all with intriguing blog posts. I started up the computer, opened my email and promptly got a blue screen of death and the computer shut itself off. And it has refused to power on ever since.
I spent some time freaking out and I looked into a few options. Sony will fix it for a price...they have fixed prices for different levels of service but we don't really know what level of service it needs until they diagnose it, which also has a charge and can't happen until I send it to them on my dime. I've basically determined that I'll most likely pay for a Tier 1 issue but that I'm not going for the more expensive ones. I'm kind of skeptical about putting much money into a computer that seems slightly unreliable and has already had to be repaired twice, especially when there are repair categories that cost about as much as a new laptop. The other issue, of course, is that I've theoretically lost some data. Nothing that's the ABSOLUTE end of the world, but definitely some things that I defintely want to have.
The likelihood of a new laptop is a question in and of itself. This laptop (the Dell) is annoying because it is slow (both slower than the other computer and slower than it used to be in general.) It still has some major issues that made me think that it is going to keel over any minute although it HAS survived (mostly in a drawer) for a kind of long time. Longer than the other one. And it has a lot of issues that make it particularly inconvienient to use...the battery doesn't work, it weighs twice as much as the other one, the screen doesn't stay up very well. And it won't run Sims2 (I received both Sims2 expansion packs for Christmas). In the long run, it works well enough for absolutely essential purposes, but not for extra fun purposes.
A more clear-headed and practical friend pointed out that Harvard computer services might fix the Vaio for less money. I got in touch with them and found out that they have a help-desk that is open starting tomorrow (after break) that will help me recover my data. I guess that my best case scenario is that I recover all my data and then they give me an idea what's wrong such that I can make a better decision about how much repairs will cost. I'll keep you updated, but it is frustrating and will likely impact how much time I spend online. Maybe.
I recommend against buying a Vaio.
posted by Immunegirl @ 9:30 PM
3 Comments:
If the help desk doesn't help, you can always pull the hard drive grab the data and run. If the help desk can't fix it, I'd write it off - unless you're good enough at bitching to sony about how they failed the identify the problem in your laptop that caused two failures under warranty. Accuse them of deliberarately misdiagnosing the problem with the intent of getting you to pay for post warranty repair.
Gah
Much sympathy here. I also have my old crappy laptop hanging around. I was going to send it to Coco, but my new one got stolen (much suckiness) and now my new, new one has a crappy keyboard, a super loud CD drive, intermitant wireless and the hard drive is corrupting as I type.
The good news is I bought a four year warranty (I never buy warrenties, but it seems worth it for a laptop). The bad news is, it's just such an pain to deal with it.
Ben is right, you might be able to convince Sony they sent you a lemon. I probebly wouldn't wouldn't because of the hassle and I hate things like that, but it might work.
GaaaaaHHHHHH
I have my HP laptop, which has been all over the country and around the block a few times. Granted it did quit because the port one plugs the battery adapter into became loose, but the authorized repair center here was quite reasonable. And I need to take it in again, but that was my fault for leaving the window open (who knew the rain would come from that direction, I'd never seen that happen before) but now it is more a lack of time. Or just too lazy to make the effort. Point is, HP makes a great product (and not just because I worked for them for a number of years).
I agree with the bitching about it being a lemon idea, certainly in the first year one shouldn't have any issues.
Good luck *smooches*
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