Sony Vaio VGN 117S....anybody...??

Posted by: arf005 on 27 August 2004

Folks,

I've been lusting over this laptop for some time now, and having just worked a 3 week'er so will have the extra cash to throw at it. Main reasons for the attraction are - the screen size, specs (although compared to my aged Dell - Inspiron 7000 Pentium 2 366MHz with 128M of ram - anything would look good!!) and the fact that my digi still/movie cams are both Sony.

But. I am having great difficulty finding one in store!

The Sony shop on Holburn St. (for all you Abredonians out there) fucked me off saying they won't bother ordering one in for shop display as they expect it to be replaced in 4-6 weeks. They then seemed a bit vague about the price and asked what I'd found elsewhere.....once I told them, they named their price - a hundred quid more.....so much for salesmen!

I've since called around and nobody has this model in......pc world/comet/john lewis did have one in stock but it was in Glasgow....

I would like to check it out before I buy, and thought this afternoon about the Naim community.....

Is there anybody out there who has bought/used/stolen/got any experience of this model of vaio...??

Regards,
Ali
Posted on: 27 August 2004 by arf005
Cheers Alex.

I found the cheapest price so far at www.laptopshop.co.uk - £1,492.24

And yeah, still can't get me hands on it!
Posted on: 28 August 2004 by arf005
Anybody else got any info.........
Posted on: 28 August 2004 by count.d
The only info I have is not to buy anything from Dabs.
Posted on: 28 August 2004 by count.d
No personal contact whatsoever.
They never reply to any question that is not listed on their contacts questions list.
Their website does not work properly when ordering.
Their website does not work properly when arranging pick up.
Extremely difficult to cancel an order (impossible for me recently)
Poor credit control informing me that my credit card had been rejected, even though my credit card issuer informed me that there was no problems.
Slow service.
Poor delivery (obvious damage on arrival)
Slow refund.
Poor service when you have a warranty query.

Hard to believe from a well known company, but true. I even saved some of the web pages I was filling in with my details, because I didn't trust the confirmations I would receive back from them.

There is bound to someone who will reply and say "I've never had any problems with them", well best of luck.
Posted on: 30 August 2004 by Top Cat
Gotta agree with The Count on this one. Avoid Dabs - they're fine assuming you follow the 'Happy Path' - but deviate from thy path at ye peril...

They're also not especially cheap.

The only other thing I'd add here is a tongue-in-cheek troll to "Buy a Mac" - having done the Dell laptop->Mac Powerbook thing, there's NO WAY I would ever go back to a PC laptop...

John
Posted on: 30 August 2004 by garyi
Don't use Dabs!

My own fault but I got the wrong type of harddrive from them it took a month to get it returned and there are no humans to talk to, most frustrating.
Posted on: 30 August 2004 by arf005
Understood count.d,

I recently had shit customer service from screwfix which was a bummer! Unexpected as well.
It held up the 'dedicated spur' (future proofing) and general house electrics upgrade.....
Posted on: 02 September 2004 by arf005
nobody got one of these vaio's then......??
Posted on: 03 September 2004 by keithy
Sadly,

sony vaios are not well reknowned for reliability.

YMMV
Posted on: 03 September 2004 by arf005
Keithy,
I wasn't aware of that.... Is it hardware or software reliability issues...??

Anything would be better than my Dell the noo!

Are there any other laptop out there with similar specs - screen size/internals etc that I could consider....??
Posted on: 03 September 2004 by garyi
I like the look of those new mega thin sonys, the drive is seperate though but it does look nice, where the hell does the battery reside

1800 quid though, and they say apple is expensive. Would be nice though
Posted on: 03 September 2004 by 7V
My German brother-in-law has just bought an Asus and it's very smart indeed. Beautiful.

I'll certainly consider it when I come to replace my own aging Inspiron 7000.

You can't get them everywhere but try here.

Steve Margolis
defy convention - make music
Posted on: 04 September 2004 by arf005
Cheers guys.

the main attraction for me to that particular model of vaio was the screen size/specs, and not so much the usual laptop 'portability' features.....plus they look smart...
Posted on: 20 September 2004 by arf005
Cheers ag,

think the laptop's on hold until next year now....as well as the Naim..... Eek

Got a wedding/honeymoon to do first, oh, and a house to sort too......