Your Verdict on this Laptop please guys

[zippie151]

Well I'm a new member of the forums (have been browsing for a while though) and there seem to be many of you who seem to know whats good and whats not so to speak.
I am soon off to university and about to purchase a laptop in the next couple of months and dont have a monster budget, roughly £800-£900, so i was wondering what you guys think of this as an all rounder, ie older games occassionally, movies and its general competence as a computer; (link below)

The model is a Sony Vaio VGN-FW21E and can be found the sonystyle website under laptops (sorry cant post the link yet, not enough posts )


your thoughts would be greatly appreciated, thnx

[zaphox]

Looks pretty good over all.

How much do you plan to use it away from a mains socket? Battery life up to 2 Hours 40 Min it says on the site, will that be enough?

[zippie151]

thanks for the reply, well it wont be away from the mains that long i dont think so 2hr 40mins should be enough. I am just wondering whether it would be worth maybe getting a custom laptop from rizeon as their prices are similar for what seems to be a better spec (minus the blu-ray of course), anyone think that would be better? specifically the Rizeon S97V-GT

[staffsMike]

Rizeon are alright, spoken to them a few times and they certainly have their head screwed on. I wouldn't think they are the be all and end all in quality given the chassis they use but should be fine.

Personally having had a vaio I wouldn't buy another. Lovely as they are in design and quality they are a nightmare to fix or upgrade, the warranty service is non existant even driver support can be limited. They are also over priced.

I would spend your £800 - £900 on a dell, possibly an xps M1330 or M1530 depending on what size you want (13.3 and 15" respectively).
Some deals here
http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/...al-comparison/

You will get better overall perforamance, great quality and fantastic warranty support expecially if you buy extra warranty as it's all next day on site so you are only without your laptop for the minimum amount of time.
There is a blu ray and screen upgrade available when you go through to the dell site etc..

Wait for the xmas deal codes to come out and dell with be even cheaper, you have just missed a 20% off deal code for them

https://www.sonystyle.co.uk/SonyStyl...22BC29B72)/.do

The laptop you have found is nice though and the price isn't too bad, but be warned about the vaio pits of doom.

[strike-down]

I would say the studio 15 laptop from dell. Get more bang for your buck than the XPS 1530. I went on the dell site, and came up with this:

C2D T9400 2.53ghz
4gb 800mhz DDR2
256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450
250gb 5400rpm hdd (can have the 320gb hdd for £30 more)
6 cell battery (9 cell upgrade available but goes £39 over budget)
15.4" Widescreen WXGA+ WLED (1440x900) TFT Display with TrueLife
Vista home premium

£869

that also comes with the 3 year in-home warranty (£50 more for the 4 year)

[staffsMike]

Yeah my only reservation about suggesting that one is it is very bulky where the XPS is simiar to the sony FW.

[strike-down]

Thats true, but me personally, Id rather carry around a bit more weight and have the performance

[staffsMike]

Well if you're going to split hairs on performance, the XPS has the far superior graphics card and is close on CPU grunt

[strike-down]

ok ok i give. just noticed on the xps you get a free battery upgrade to the 9 cell
dell either way