never buy a sony vaio latop :(
 

14 months ago I bought 2 sony latops; one small VGN-tx5xn & the huge beast with the blue ray drive and the 1920x1600 20 inch screen.
How come both batteries go dead exactly after 13 months (garuantee is for 12 months on battery)??
After a lot of searching I find a phone number in Holland that puts me thru to a guy in Belgium where a nice guy tells me to send the laptop to him and for 200 euro they will check it and each battery would cost 300 euro ex VAT ....damn.
So 2x200 and 2x300 + 19% VAT :(
Cheaper to buy 2 new latops then.....

Tried to order the batteries from another supplier then Sony...bit cheaper...but...not in stock...delivery up to 8 fucking weeks.


bad bad bad; Sony..don't buy one.

That's about the normal life for a battery under heavy use regardless of brand. If one battery supplier is out of stock, try another. It's not Sony's fault.

should've bought the extended warranty

I loved my Sony Vaio.....I have a Toshiba Satellite now....

But you're right about the battery on the Vaio....After awhile, the battery wouldn't work AT ALL unless the laptop was plugged in....It would go dead like a regular electrical appliance after it was unplugged from the wall.

Almost all of the notebooks I've had have that problem after a year or so. The biggest problem for us is that we generally leave the notebook plugged in all the time, then when we unplug, the battery just has no charge.

I would never buy a laptop if it´s not Toshiba or HP. Last laptop I would buy is a Vaio.

did you have keyboard problems too?
one the big laptop the letter "o" does not work anymore and the small laptop keeps letters pressed well not showing up on my screen. So i have to retype each sentence twice and check

Same thing happened to a friend of mine.

i have had SONY, Toshiba and DELL laptops before i switch to Macbook... Never had any issues with any. Toshiba was porbbaly the best of the 3 before my macbook.

You have to get in the habit of at least once a week to unplug a laptop and take it down to like 10% battery life and than plug back in.

if you have the receipts and can verify the purchase dates i would call sony customer service and put a complaint in. Worth a shot to see what they respond since u have 2 units that have same problem at same time...

laptop companies warranties do not cover batteries after a year regardless if you have an extended warranty.. they know they die

had two vaios
never again
piece of shit notebooks... i also had a sony camera which was a piece of shit, too
no more sony for me - ever

I bought a Vaio two years ago, it got fucked after one year already. What a piece of shit and total waste of money. I spent like 1300 euro's on that bullshit and barely ever used it.

I hate notebooks overall anyway, my desktop is 1000 times more stable and faster.

I thought most laptops had battery problems after a year...

The batteries are wired to go bad. I read there's some chip in them that tells them when to die.

i had a pink sony vaio but the backlight went out after having it for less than a year. i have to send it back to sony to get it replaced which i have yet to do instead i just bought a new laptop.

Guess I am lucky. I have never had a problem with battery life on any laptop.

Probably never should have said that.

That's a problem every brand of notebook suffers from, Even macbooks. Eventually the battery stops taking a charge. The best way to lengthen the battery life is to remove the battery once you plug it into the wall and only put the battery back in when you need to go portable.

As for other types of failures.. laptops are designed with such quality to only last a year. No brand is better than the other aside from maybe macbooks lasting slightly longer due to the fact that the mac os does not put as much strain on the hardware.

If you want a machine to last past a year, buy extended warranties from the retailer or manufacturer. Applecare is perfect and better than retailer warranties. They cover one accidental break. As for Sony, HP, Toshiba, Dell and LG.. buy the retailer's warranties as you typically get no-lemon guaranties.

Check out the LG laptops. They are less likely to cause problems during the 1st year's warranties. They are ridiculously fast with 1gb turbo cache and higher spec processors too. However still get extra coverage for the next year(s)

desktops work best :) laptops are just good enough to read your email on a bizz trip or a presentation

now ya did it... I give it two weeks max and your battery will be on the fritz.

I have 3 sony vaio laptops and love them

you must have killed the batteries cause you dont know how to take care of them

I should probably order one now.

I have a vaio laptop but its pretty new so i can't say anything about the battery life. I recommend you plug it in, order the battery from Sony and just suckit up. How much can a battery possibly cost? $100?

I am planning to buy a laptop, HP, but based on the battery issue, I'd rather buy a new desktop.

sony batteries they charge 400$ for and 8 weeks of waiting....

i had HP, Asus and now on Vaio (VGN AR150G), this is the best SCREEN I had. So for sure Vaio next time for me, unless I rethink it for Mac.

I only recently replaced my Vaio battery.

I asked for the price at the Sony store: $250.00

I made my purchase on eBay: $50.00

Easy math.

that is terrible!! I hope mine lasts a while.

my HP laptop was so shitty I thought I would never get another laptop again. The fan was ALWAYS on and it was so hot. I am actually loving my sony.

My HP desktop from last year actually died recently (motherboard blew) and my Vaio desktop from 1998 runs perfectly. It is funny how sometimes you get lucky and other times you get shit. Needless to say I would never buy another HP after the 2 lemons I have.

I bought my Vaios AFTER my HP motherboard died :) But certain HP's seem to have that all after one year I heard from a PC repair guy. ZD8000 series

Just pay extra for the 12 cell battery. You'll get twice the lifetime out of it. It's worth the extra 150-160. The DV6800 series rocks. 64bit os, 4gb ram, 8-12 cell battery as opposed to 6 cell and geforce 8400 on some models.

Yeah those do have nice screens. The new VGN420 just plain rocks. Even nicer screen. The Vaio is an overpriced product based on specs but you get a nice screen and solid chasis.

It's unfortunate but every box brand computer suffers blowouts way earlier than expected. Ones made pre-2002 last forever. Better quality and slower machines with less heat. Buy a brand new pc today and I guaranty it wont last past a year unless you build it yourself.

Funny part is.. HP desktops use brand name motherboards.. but lesser quality versions. dell, sony, hp, acer, gateway, alienware. etc etc.. all junk compared to previous generations from them sadly.

There are secondary markets for a battery. i managed to get one for half what Sony wanted.

Here is one for the VGN-tx5xn for US$94.00 - http://www.ebuybatteries.com/product...GN+TX5XN~B.htm and they do ship internationally.

I was going to buy one this weekend actually, however I have heard the same. I have a laptop now and its a compaq but its completely falling apart after 2 years.......battery life is still ok, although i try to keep it plugged in as much as possible anyway..... I found a vaio for sale at Best buy, but decided it also didnt have everything I wanted in it so I think I might go with the gateway thats only $50 more with a webcam and more ram.

Got VIAO before, that worked perfectly fine for 3 years and I even sold it after for 400$. Now I have another VIAO for more than 2 years already and still going strong, not problems with batteries whatsoever.

thanks !

noted....

keep in mind that gateway charges for customer support.

I must be lucky, I have a Toshiba Satellite from 2004 and the battery still works fine. I don't use it much though, it was a replacement for an old Compaq tank (P133, 32MB RAM, 2GB HD, circa 1997) that was stolen.

All I buy are Sony Vaio Laptops, the batteries definitely suck bad but the systems themselves are built very well. Hopefully you'll give them another chance.

i had two vaio sz's the first one lasted a long time and went everywhere with me (about 2-3 yr i think), from the freezing -30 snowy canada weather :D:D:D to +40 on the beach in thailand. had ants inside it actually later, and got extremely dirty so i bought a new one. very very happy with it, and the screen is teh best screen ihave teh ever see on a laptop and i have had many laptops :D however sz design is getting a little old now and im interested to see what 13" form factor notebook they come up with next :)

I have 2 Sony laptops....i am happy....Sony made great laptops....it is normal thing that battaries dies in 12 monthes if you use laptop a lot.....each battary have charge limit

kinda wished i read that before i got mine years ago
Battery is a piece of crap and can't last more than 1 hour

the 12 cell batteries dont last any longer i have a IBM t60 and my extended battery lasted me a whole 10 months.

I sent mine back after 2 weeks.