Sony VAIO VGN-SZ491N/X 13.3-inch Laptop Review
Sony VAIO VGN-SZ491N/X 13.3-inch Laptop Review from Randy B. The computer that sold me on the swith to Mac, A friend of mine told me he switched to Macs a few years ago because he was tired of rebuilding his Windows machines every time he turned them on. After 24 hours with this system, that’s not much of an exaggeration.
Don’t buy this $2,500 Sony unless you’re prepared for continuing frustration and slooooooower than a turtle performance. After 24 hours with this system I’d have done better with a brick. I gave up.
Vista Business is frustratingly slow, it takes forever to boot – in fact, it takes forever to do just about anything.
If you don’t install all of the Vista updates immediately upon initially turning this Sony notebook on, you’ll end up on phone support with Sony with a “invalid activation key” error, which basically meant everything I had installed was lost and I had to start over.
Sony support was very helpful in resolving this “well-known Vista issue,” but if it is so “well known,” then why didn’t Sony fix it before they shipped out this overpriced piece of junk?
I tried reinstalling some of my Windows XP programs and found them not compatible with Vista. No problem, use System Restore, right? Wrong. System restore gave a message that said it couldn’t restore – typical Microsoft, no explanation or suggestions. An internet search suggested restoring from safe mode. That didn’t work either.
Don’t order it and if you do, don’t open it unless you want to get stuck for a 15% restocking fee. I knew this going in. I don’t blame Amazon, they handled the return with their typically good customer service (I’ll let you know if the credit doesn’t show up in a timely way). I do blame Sony for shipping them out without the critical patches installed. Mostly I blame Microsoft for introducing another not-ready-for-primetime, bloated operating system. Goodbye Microsoft. I’ll convert my desktops to Macs too over the next couple years too and never look back.
Even the re-stocking fee is worth it to get rid of this overpriced junk. I got a top-of-the-line MacBook with their latest (just released) operating system (and a REAL battery life of over 4 hours) for $850 less. Even after repurchasing software, I’ll still be several hundred dollars ahead.
To check price or purchase Sony VAIO VGN-SZ491N/X 13.3-inch Laptop.