Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased this laptop in June 2010. Initially it seemed decent, although it comes loaded with bloatware and battery life is so short that you won't be able to finish a movie without plugging in. Trackpad is occasionally erratic. On the bright side, it plays Blu Ray DVDs and has a numerical keyboard.
Three months after the purchase the hard drive started failing. The computer would occasionally freeze while hard drive is making loud clicking noises, like a clock. Sometime it would just stay like that until I force the hardware shutdown, and sometime it would reboot by itself. Either way, whatever you were working on is lost. Even worse, sometime after the boot a message "no operating system found" would show up. Note that I am a rather advanced user and take good care of my computers, including antivirus protection and regular maintenance. My computer at work and another laptop at home run identical software to what's running on this Sony, and have shown no signs of trouble whatsoever.
I did run a Seagate (manufacturer of the HDD) diagnostic utility which returned a specific error code and a message that "hard drive has failed an important diagnostic test" and that I should contact the OEM (that would be Sony) to exchange the HDD if it is still under warranty (which it is). Also, checkdisk reports more and more bad sectors over the past few months.
I contacted Sony customer care in order to get the problem fixed. After literally hours on the phone over the past months, I am still nowhere close to getting my computer fixed per warranty. I was first told that I should call them when ready and they will send me a new HDD and the return envelope for the old one. The next time I called I was told that in fact they will have the technician call me back "within three business days" to schedule a home visit and check and replace the HDD as needed. A week had passed, but no one ever called me back. I called again and now got a different story - that the technician will not be visiting me, but that they will ship a replacement drive and I will have to ship the old HDD and provide credit card number, and if Sony determines that HDD was not defective, they will charge my credit card. They would not answer my question how exactly they would determine if the HDD was defective or not. Finally, they started insisting that I run Sony VAIO diagnostic tool, and provide the error code it returns. The problem is, this tool reports that the hard drive is "OK". Note that at some point a Sony representative played a recorded sound over the phone which was exactly identical to the clockwork clicking noise I get when the computer freezes, meaning they are well aware of the problem with this kind of HDD. Also note that another diagnostic tool from Seagate does detect the drive as faulty and in need of replacement.
All in all, I am left with a computer that randomly freezes and reboots due to a faulty HDD, but so far I haven't been able to get it fixed even though it is well under warranty. I will definitely not purchase any Sony products in future, as I expect a manufacturer to promptly honor the warranty and make sure their customer is happy with the purchase.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Sony VAIO(R) VPCEB16FX/B 15.5" Notebook PC - Glossy Black
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