

 Sony in talks to sell loss-making Vaio PC business - nzonbi
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/05/us-sony-vaio-idUSBREA131TU20140205

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iaskwhy
I had two Vaio laptops. The first one was my first laptop, it was really
cheap, around 400 EUR, and worked wonders. When it was time to upgrade I
needed a Mac so I bought a MacBook Air. I gave the Vaio to my father and he's
been using it everyday since. It's been six years and it still works
perfectly, not a single issue. Sometimes I still play with it, it's fast
enough for me, almost too fast for my father.

The second Vaio I had was bought my by line manager at the time so I could
work with C# for a new project. It was a high end one, probably more than 1000
EUR. It was an amazing machine. At the time, I have never seen a screen like
that and I was surrounded by Macbooks, really great quality. Maybe it was
because of its pixel density, can't quite figure out why it felt so good on
the eyes. Also, the keyboard and the sound, things I usually nitpick about,
were very good. I quit that company some years ago but I know that one is
still being used when needed. I would say that machine was very on par with
the Macbooks even after a couple of years. And then came the SSD (and also my
Macbook Air).

It's sad if the Vaio label goes away.

~~~
exDM69
My experience with the Vaio brand is pretty much the polar opposite from
yours. I bought a high end 1.5 kEUR Vaio laptop a few years ago and it's still
with me. It had the best perf/EUR when it comes to CPU, GPU and memory out of
the options I had back then and the monitor resolution was good.

But the build quality is just crap. The case is cracked, the touchpad is just
awful, the connectors are in silly places. Now the battery has died so if you
unplug it, the machine powers down immediately.

And the cooling is just inadequate for the CPU + GPU, albeit it has a Sandy
Bridge and a Fermi and neither of those are known for their power efficiency.
The fan is yelling like hell all the time, despite the fact that the interior
of the machine is just a huge copper heat sink that weighs a ton.

I wouldn't buy another Vaio.

But all our experiences can really be taken as evidence of is that they had a
huge lineup of different models.

~~~
contingencies
To be fair, all laptop batteries die, and many laptops have inadequate cooling
(this 2011 17" Macbook Pro certainly does).

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redial
Maybe relevant, Steve Jobs wanted to license OS X to Sony for their VAIO line.

[http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-apple-
os-...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/5/5380832/sony-vaio-apple-os-x-steve-
jobs-meeting-report)

[http://nobi.com/en/Steve%20Jobs%20and%20Japan/entry-1212.htm...](http://nobi.com/en/Steve%20Jobs%20and%20Japan/entry-1212.html)

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rayiner
Sony exemplifies why PC vendors are crap. Too many models, no
intergenerational continuity. With Apple, they take a design and iterate it
for years. The Macbook had been working the same basic strengths for almost a
decade. I buy one and I know that in a couple of years, I can buy the new
model and it'll be a solid upgrade. With Sony, its a crapshoot. The Pro 13
looks like a solid machine. With great battery life. In 2 years, there won't
be a followup that has the same basic strengths. It'll be a new machine that
is a total crapshoot. Good chance there will be some major regression and I'll
have to find a new vendor. Heck, the can't even build on strengths at any
given time. While the pro 13 had high battery efficiency, the similar flip 13
has terrible efficiency.

~~~
Beliavsky
I buy Windows computers from HP and Dell and hardly notice the difference
between the two companies. I don't worry that they might stop producing PC's,
because I am sure somebody will.

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rayiner
It's not just about getting some sort of PC. It's about finding a PC that hits
the sweet spot for me and being able to rely on getting new ones that have
roughly the same characteristics. I got MacBook in maybe 2006, and now eight
years later I've got a MacBook Air. The Air is a very similar machine
(emphasis on long battery life, light weight, and physical durability, same
13.3" screen size, island keyboard), just better in every way (lighter, longer
battery life, etc).

With a PC, I have no such predictability. Say I build my workflow around the
Vaio Fit 13 with its flip screen and N-Trig pen. Two years from now, am I
going to find a similar model to replace it with? Or will I have to get a
Lenovo with a different sort of keyboard and different hinge mechanism, etc?

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peroo
I love my Vaio-Z, but it's a bit like a Lamborghini - pretty and sleek, but
not all that practical. It has a blazing graphics card but the fan noise could
rouse a coma patient. Even worse, after a year it simply started shutting down
because cooling wasn't working particularly well anymore, and the fan never
goes below medium speed, even when idle. The RAID-SSDs failed too, and are
extremely expensive to replace, so I had to put a new SSD in the optical drive
bay.

Needless to say, next time I'll be buying something a bit more practical, and
likely for a lot less money.

~~~
hcrisp
I have a Vaio that had a loud fan speed problem. I found a post online that
said to go to the Windows advanced power settings and set the CPU power to 99%
to make it slow down. It actually worked. Something about not letting the
Intel Duo core chip go into turbo mode, which keeps it cooler.

~~~
peroo
Yep that prevents turbo which stops it from shutting down. Crippling the CPU
is a pretty annoying fix, though.

Switching to the onboard Intel GPU works as well, but that means foregoing
hardware decoding which means a bunch of things run like glue. I actually
ended up just replacing the fan which solved the issue for at least another
year until I can get a new copmuter.

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gaius
All you need to know about Vaios: Sony issues Thinkpads to its own staff.

~~~
csmithuk
That really doesn't surprise me. I was _given_ a brand new Sony Vaio VPC-J1
all in one. Had a niceish 20" 1920x1080 screen and an i5 so decided to try and
use it for dev work.

Came stuffed with crapware and Sony-isms from the start. Did a rebuild with
clean windows. Couldn't find any drivers for any of the Sony proprietary crap
(Sony firmware extension parser, Magic Gate, WTF etc) so left them off as it
worked fine.

After about 2 months the external PSU blew up. Sony couldn't provide a
replacement under warranty for over 6 weeks so I got a dodgy Chinese PSU from
Ali Express (took 2 days to arrive!). About 2 months later it started
overheating and turning off randomly. Took it to bits to try and clean it and
noticed that half the screws on the stand were no longer screwed in - all the
threads were stripped. The stand collapsed shortly after resulting it being
crudely propped on a pile of books. Turns out there was no dirt in the cooling
ducts at all. Took the HSF off the CPU and there was only thermal paste on
half of it. Sorted it with some arctic silver. About a month later the disk
blew up. Turns out it was from a known bad batch of WD disks. Stuck a new disk
in it. A month later it completely failed.

Total piece of junk. It lives in my cupboard as a reminder never to buy
anything Sony and as a source of a mouse and keyboard for my daughter's
Raspberry Pi. Even the keyboard and mouse suck.

ThinkPad user before and afterwards. ZERO problems ever.

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ghc
That would be a shame. I've had a series of VAIOs since the late 90s, and
aside from the S series in the mid-2000s they've been stellar Linux machines.

The VAIO Pro I replaces my Z with in November is a fantastic machine and
pretty much everything worked out of the box with Debian+Xmonad.

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epipsychidion
ITT: People post anecdotes about Vaio products without commenting on the
actual article.

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girvo
Shame. My mums Vaio Pro (in red) is awesome.

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n2j3
Will they also be selling the bucketloads of Vaio bloatware they force down
your throat? Good riddance.

~~~
n2j3
Retracting the above comment, considering 5k people are getting laid off...

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ulfw
What will we do one day if there's no more computer vendors left?

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csmithuk
Well I'm stockpiling T-series ThinkPads :)

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w1ntermute
Too bad the new ones have fucked-up keyboards.

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csmithuk
Yeah agree. Not going past the T420!

