Opinions On This Sony Laptop?

Doctor Varney

Cave dwelling Luddite
Sony (Vaio?) laptop computer for my girlfriend. Used. Excellent condition.

Intel Core 2 Duo
1600 MHz
100 Gig hard disc
Card Reader
Wireless
Windows Vista

£200 (GBP)

No auctions, no mail order. From shop owner in my street (excellent track record).

Uses: Photoshop, email, itunes, surfing the web, general home office duties.

Good for the price or should we keep looking?

--------------------------------------------------------------
Or:

Same as above, but with broken screen. With brand new replacement screen (fitted by qualified person)
£100 GBP (all inclusive).

Cheers

Dr. V
 
Hey Varney.
Core2duo is technically out of date now. They can still be pretty capable machines all the same.
Any better info on the processor? That's where they skimp if they're going to.

It's like, rover engine doesn't necessarily mean V8.

Personally I'd definitely go for the latter. I'm a sucker for a bargain that would put most people off. That's why it's a bargain. :)
 
My wife has one. Other than the fact that it has Vista (one month prior to W7 free grace period upgrade), and the keyboard went out after 13 months ($30 replacement), it has been pretty damned reliable. Paid $700 for it new, like 3 years or so ago.
 
Hey Varney.
Core2duo is technically out of date now. They can still be pretty capable machines all the same.
Any better info on the processor? That's where they skimp if they're going to.

Well, that's dual core isn't it? Isn't that still pretty good these days? We've been offered Windows 7 cheap (legit licence) so I wonder how well it would run that?

Thanks

Dr. V
 
Well, that's dual core isn't it? Isn't that still pretty good these days? We've been offered Windows 7 cheap (legit licence) so I wonder how well it would run that?

Thanks

Dr. V

how much is a vaio e series near you? entry level sony but its i5 chip is pretty decent...6 gigs of ram standard and a decent sized HDD...only the new ones are 7200rpm though...it comes with Acid, Vegas, Soundforge as standard here

dual cores get hammered by todays software...I still ran a two year old dual core macbookpro until a few weeks ago and it struggled with anything other than the simplest projects
 
Well, that's dual core isn't it? Isn't that still pretty good these days? We've been offered Windows 7 cheap (legit licence) so I wonder how well it would run that?

Thanks

Dr. V

It depends.
There are core2duo chips out there that outperform lower end i3 and maybe i5.
There are also core2duo chips out there that get outperformed by high end pentium 4.

Usually there's a number like t7500 which identifies the processor. My old dell had that chip and it wasn't half bad.

The generation of CPU tells you very little about its capability.
 
Thanks for the opinions on this, guys. We've decided to pass that one up and wait a little while longer.

Cheers

Dr. V
 
I've just seen another one but better, going for less.

There's a Sony Vaio going for £99 in my local gaming/ tech exchange. This I think is better than the other one I saw earlier for £220 which had Vista loaded. I'm assuming since this one has Windows 7 that it's going to be a better processor? It has 3GB of RAM while the more expensive one had only 2GB. There's a three month warranty on this. I've purchased gear from this retailer before that has done excellent service. I'm going to ask if any repairs have been carried out on it. I dislike laptop PCs in general but I've heard the VAIOs are very well built. It appears to have the external build quality I'd normally expect from a Macbook.

My main problem at the moment is in trying to learn about the comparative values of processors in each model I come across. I'm attempting to tackle the question here if anyone has anything to add?

Many thanks

Dr. V
 
I own two vaios...there nowhere near the build quality of a mac, but theyre not the ones lying in the garbage either, my mac is...

It would be interesting to see what you can get for 99...i cant imagine its much more than an older dual core, which could leave you with the same problems with CPU...there again, you may get the bargain of the year ;)
 
I bought it.

kcearl said:
It would be interesting to see what you can get for 99...i cant imagine its much more than an older dual core, which could leave you with the same problems with CPU...there again, you may get the bargain of the year

It's history, I'm told, is that it was purchased in Jan 2012, which makes it just over a yr old. The processor is Intel Centrino, Dual Core. So I'm not sure if falls into your category of 'older dual core'?

I agree. Up close, the case build quality of the Vaio is nowhere near a Mac's.

The main fault was that the HDD bay cover was missing. The drive was held in place by a temporary black metal plate. I was advised they could order a new bay cover for £9, which I didn't take up. I was given a free mouse and start up CD. The battery and charger, he claimed to be brand new (bought in January this year) as was the hard drive and memory. The price was knocked down to £95 to account for overall condition of the outer casing. While slightly shabby on the underside, the top half is in excellent condition.

This morning the Vaio failed to boot even on it's power lead, so I took it back. At first it was suspected the drive was dead. Turned out to be bad memory. So he has put in provisional new memory and has ordered new Kingston memory as replacement - as well as the hard drive bay cover for no extra charge. He's taken my phone number and has promised to phone me in 3-4 days, which is when he anticipates the delivery.

After one repair, I am entitled by their policy to a refund if anything else breaks down. The shop is a ten minute walk from my house. This why I don't use Ebay.
 
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