I also own one. (Sony) and bought it from bestbuy. I also bought there
total protection plan for 4 years. There_contractor_ fixes it not sony.

I also have heard the same thing about sony. But I like it so much I
bought it. If it were not for the bestbuy plan to fix it, I would have
gone to another make that's for sure. The 1st one I bought was a Toshiba
but the restore dvd was messed up. Even Toshiba said after going thru 3
laptops in two days. Toshiba told me that they would not send me out a
restore disc that worked. That was my cue to move on to another brand.

It was the video driver on the restore dvd that was messed up. Doing a
restore did not install it for a Intel chip set. It Installed one for
n-vidia. In control panel it had the icon for nvidia.

The sony had a much larger hard drive and a webcam. 60 gigs more. A
little less weight also. The price was 50.00 more for the sony. Both
were on sale. Plus I got a free 1 gig flash drive with the sony. The
Toshiba battery lasted almost 15mins more then the sony. But the sony
has a faster cpu 200mhz more so that might be the cause of the shorter
life, but not 15 mins worth. The sony had more software, but thats
nothing to brag about.


M.I.5¾ wrote:
> "Notan" <notan@ddressthatcanbespammed> wrote in message
> news:x5ednSWKZOL9By_YnZ2dnUVZ_qvinZ2d@giganews.com ...
>> kelly wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I am thinking about buying the Sony VAIO VGN-SZ3VWP/X. I have never
>>> owned a Sony laptop before and have a few simple questions, I hope
>>> someone can answer.
>>>
>>> 1. I understand the laptop comes with a lot of pre-installed
>>> software/bloatware. I want to have a clean install of Windows but have
>>> heard this can cause problems with drivers etc. I have also heard you
>>> can use the Sony restore disk and cancel it midway to avoid it installing
>>> all the "bloatware". Is this true? Are there any other ways to have a
>>> clean install without problems with drivers, etc?
>>>
>>> 2. If I have a clean install using the method above is it possible for me
>>> to choose the size of the partitions? I want a C and D drive and want to
>>> be able to choose the size of each partition.
>>>
>>> 3. If anyone owns the laptop above, their opinions would be useful.
>> In addition to extremely expensive batteries and replacement parts,
>> Sony has some of the worst after-the-sale support known to man.
>>
>> CAVEAT EMPTOR!
>>
>
> To provide balance to that last post. A chap here (in UK) has a VAIO which
> failed (bad screen). He sent it by courier to Sony (in France). It was
> back with him repaired and working 2 (yes just *TWO*) days later.
>
>