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I can buy a computer with that exorbitant $390.This computer is too large to lug around and I wish the keys are white. Hi,my aw120j battery runs out in one and half hour. When I try to buy a backup battery, I found out that they are out of stock and are proprietary - so it will cost me more - about $390 to buy the larger capacity (with 50% more juice). There are too many Vista software running which churns the hard drive, so I turned of superfetch, windows defender, and other services not needed. Google for superfetch and you find techgeek - he has the list of recommended services to turn off.
I purchased my Sony VIAO VGN-AW120J ten months ago. A HUGE cost. I purchased the unit in Denver but I am now in Europe.
Previously the only problem I had was that the unit locked up, but as the one reviewer stated all you have to do is unplug the unit and then remove the battery. The cost of shipping was prohibitive. It most aspects it is a wonderful computer.
Sony wanted me to send the unit back to the States for repair under warranty. Wait a minute and then reinstall the battery and plug it in. Then all worked well.But last week my optical drive went out.
I called Sony Europe, but because I purchased it in the States the warranty was invalid and I would have to pay shipping and repair -$881. My only suggestion if you purchase this unit and plan to be overseas is to take out the international warranty (I was not told that this was available, but it is - so ask)
I think I should buy the extended warranty and also plan on backing up my files to an external hard drive every week.Some other observations: Sometimes, hibernate does not work. Lost 3 months worth of files, including time and money dealing with both Sony and iTOK tech support.
Sony tech support was responsive but the tools provided did not help. I was liking this laptop very much, until the hard drive failed without any notice.
Paid $230 to an iTOK tech support to come and recover my data but unfortunately, he could not at all recover anything from the hard drive. While the diagnostics of the hard drive indicated no failure on the hard drive, I was not able to 'rescue data' due to the internal hard drive undetected error.
But Sony tech and an iTOK tech assured me that data can still be recovered. Sony now promises to send a technician to replace my hard drive with a brandnew one.
And sometimes, IE browser freezes forever.
I even reloaded the laptop from the recovery disks and then applied the patch and it still didn't help. If you don't have to EVER contact Sony, you may like this laptop. The USB bus inside the PC is underpowered for everything they have running off of it. If you can buy a service contract where you don't have to deal with Sony, do it.So why did I return it.
Even turning off hibernate and sleep modes completely does not help, it will do it coming out of the screen saver.The solution is to unplug the power cord, unplug the battery and then plug everything back in and start it up.Go here if you are interested in the issue:http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php.t=3418282. What does this mean. If you get in to this state, the computer has trouble shutting down and if you restart it, it will freeze up at a black screen and never finish loading Windows.They have a registry patch for this issue on their driver site, but it does not work. I bought this laptop on a sale from Costco online. I had run several scans of my computer to be sure there wasn't some kind of file issue, cleaned up the hard drive with disk cleanup and ccleaner, run every update imaginable, ran a full defrag (even though it was scheduled to run automatically) and it still had the issue. The dual core processor and 4GB of RAM are helpful. I begged them to read people's emails in the future and not treat their customers like they treated me.
In my case, I had a USB keyboard, bluetooth mouse and I used the fingerprint scanner to log back in, so I pretty much had to start over using the laptop keyboard and glidepad. I even ran checkdisk and system file checker to be sure there weren't file issues in Windows.When they replied the first time, they told me to run disk cleanup and defrag. I uninstalled almost every Vaio program to see if it was some rogue program from Sony. It means that frequently when the computer comes out of hybernate, sleep, or even screen saver mode, the fingerprint scanner, USB, and bluetooth do NOT work. I have two major reasons.1. I replied asking for a supervisor or 2nd level tech. I told them that I had already done what they asked but it was rediculous to think disk clean up or defrag would help this issue.The second Sony reply asked me to apply the patch I had already applied before I sent the first email. If I treated my customers the way they treated me, I would either be in my supervisor's office or fired.I contacted them through email.
I applied it and then looked over the changed registry settings just to be sure they had actually changed because I was still having the issue. I have been doing technical support in a call center for over 13 years. In response I got an email asking me to call them to resolve the issue with the laptop.even though I told them in the first few sentences that I had already returned it.On the plus side, for what it is, this laptop is very nice. This laptop has some great features, but it also has some really big downsides.As an up front warning, I hope you never ever have to deal with Sony's Support center. The first techs email started with "I'm sorry the registry patch did not work for you."At this point I was disgusted and told them through email that I had returned the laptop to Costco.
If the 2nd tech had read the original email at the bottom, or the first line of the first techs email, they would have known I had already done that. It runs World of Warcraft nicely, I never had issues with surfing the internet, streaming music online and gaming at the same time. The screen is very bright and has beautiful color.If you don't mind having to pull out the power plug and battery every day or so OR you don't hook up any USB or bluetooth devices and don't use the fingerprint scanner, you might have a nice laptop. I told them up front that I applied their patch and it didn't help the issue. The fingerprint scanner, USB ports, Bluetooth and camera all apparently run off the same bus.
This one has 512MB of dedicated video memory which works well with a game like WoW. Sony's lack of support department stinks. Apparently they only read the first sentence or two each time I contacted them. I would recommend the 7200 rpm hard drives if you game at all and be sure the laptop has dedicated memory on the video card. Otherwise, do what I did and get an Hewlett Packard HDX 18t instead.
Very powerful. now THAT'S user friendly.As of now, I'm delighted with this computer. no lockups, no errors. 'Have had this for almost 6 months with no problems at all. It is indeed NOT a 'laptop'. and after all the bad press (considering I love XP), I'm not ready to dump it yet.
Actually, waiting for Windows 7. 'Not more 'bloatware' than can be easily dealt with. So far, terrific 'portable' computer. It has a feature that turns off the display as soon as you plug in the HDMI cable. It instantly obtained my home WiFi signal, and jumped on the web without any prep from me. Thank you, Amazon.-steveUPDATE 8/09: Still very pleased. Works terrific with Blu-ray movies, also.
However, I'm a graphic designer, and with the 18.4" display, it's perfect as a portable desktop. Just getting introduced to Vista. Runs at least as fast as my Systemax desktop, which is a quad-core. quite heavy. Seems fast enough, with plenty of HD room for my needs. Extra benefit: When I'm at my alternate (studio) location, I hook it up with my 42" HDTV and watch my Netflix 'Watch Instantly' movies thru the laptop. Very cool.
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