Rob E
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Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
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I'm in the market for a new laptop. I was all set on buying a Sony Vaio S Series laptop until I found out about the disabling of Sata3 usage to capitalise on their factory fitted SSD option of £750 
Anyway, I stumbled upon the pcspecialist.co.uk website and some of the laptops are very appealing and considerably cheaper than the Vaio with a very similar spec. Has anyone used them on here? How do you rate them? From what I can find online they seem to be pretty genuine.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Sony's are shit, avoid like the plague, buy just about anything over it.
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pow
Premium Member
Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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Buy cheap buy twice. And also steer clear of Viaos. My Alienware laptop is 3 years old and still going strong, I don't think any Sony/lesser brand would take the abuse I give it and still be working.
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Rob E
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Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
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I wouldnt call them cheap, its still exactly the same hardware you find in top line laptops. My old Dell has withstood 5 years of abuse - looks absolutely battered and is only just on the verge of packing in.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Stick to dell, can't beat them.
Sony aren't cheap to buy but they are cheap in every other respect.
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Andrew
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Registered: 5th May 04
Location: Skoda Octavia Estate, Ford Puma
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I advise my customers to go with Dell kit with 3 years warranty.
You can ge cheap PCs and Laptops from the likes of ZoomStorm but if they look that cheap, what hardware wise have they skimped on?
I agree with Pow, buy cheap, buy twice. Which for me costs my company money having to go out there twice when on a fixed monthly support contract.
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Rob E
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Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
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I've done some more digging about the company through various other forums and review sites and they definitely seem a worthy contender. The only problem I have come across is potentially longer than quoted delivery times, but you are informed and updated of progress regularly. Their aftersales service is UK based and has come across highly praised for fault rectification and knowledge.
Plus you dont void your warranty if you upgrade any part of your machine 
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LeeM
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Registered: 26th Sep 05
Location: Liverpool
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never really seen any complaints about them. but do sony seriously disable sata3? nothing you can do to enable it? i iliked my old vaio
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Rob E
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Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
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there is a hacked bios available for the 2011 models to re-enable it but as of yet no one has managed to crack it on the 2012/2013 models. You can get SATA3 speeds if you disable you ODD which isnt particularly something I would want to do. If you want SATA3 speeds from sony you have to pay for the factory uprade and then you cannot upgrade it yourself because their SSD connections are Sony unique 
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Fault rectification and knowledge from some random company on a vaio won't come close to dell sending a guy out to replace the broken part the next day with little fuss.
You also don't void your warranty with dell for just about anything other than physically damaging it.
[Edited on 17-03-2013 by John]
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LeeM
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Registered: 26th Sep 05
Location: Liverpool
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does the guy from dell bring you a new computer and tell you to pretend you broke the old one and bin it?
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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I've heard from a mate they do yes.
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LeeM
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Registered: 26th Sep 05
Location: Liverpool
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Rob E
Member
Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by John
Fault rectification and knowledge from some random company on a vaio won't come close to dell sending a guy out to replace the broken part the next day with little fuss.
You also don't void your warranty with dell for just about anything other than physically damaging it.
[Edited on 17-03-2013 by John]
It's not on a Vaio, its a custom spec'd laptop
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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I'd steer even more clear of a custom laptop than I would Sony. Let us know how you get on though.
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pow
Premium Member
Registered: 11th Sep 06
Location: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire
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quote:
Originally posted by LeeM
does the guy from dell bring you a new computer and tell you to pretend you broke the old one and bin it?
Yes, they do that if you get friendly enough with an engineer
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andy1868
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Registered: 22nd Jun 06
Location: Burscough, Lancashire
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pow, have you been sleeping with dell engineers? the wink would suggest so
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Rob E
Member
Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
User status: Offline
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You don't get nothing for free
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miles123
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Registered: 25th Apr 12
Location: Harrow, Greater London
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i used them a couple of weeks ago. they are quite good to be honest. Can't fault them
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Rob E
Member
Registered: 1st Jan 06
Location: Madeley, Stafford....I want to live back in Wales!
User status: Offline
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What spec did you go for? Laptop or Desktop?
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Whittie
Member
Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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quote:
Originally posted by John
Sony's are shit, avoid like the plague, buy just about anything over it.
Why do you say that? I get the impression everything is shit with you, apart from stuff you own.
I had a Vaio for 3 years, gave it to my dad, still works perfectly.
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John
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Registered: 30th Jun 03
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Not at all whittie. I do try and buy stuff that I regard as the best but I deal with laptops day in day out and see what is good and what isn't.
Sony are high in the list of laptops we get back in the office with expensive, difficult to find parts, then end up being replaced with a Dell after a year.
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Whittie
Member
Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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Aye, you're right regarding parts mate. I guess I was lucky or looked after mine. To be fair, I rarely come accross sony's when I come to fix customers laptops though. I guess when something does go wrong, it must monumentally bugger up. (sp)
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miles123
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Registered: 25th Apr 12
Location: Harrow, Greater London
User status: Offline
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob E
What spec did you go for? Laptop or Desktop?
Desktop but over kill on the spec tbh
3rd generation quad core i7 3770K @3.5GHz
32GB Dual DDR3 Kingston Beast HyperX Ram
120GB Intel SSD
2TB WD HDD
Half decent HDMI card...can't remember the model but was Nvidia
Running windows 7 pro 64 bit, will start using it for vmware soon
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Robbo
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Registered: 6th Aug 02
Location: London
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quote:
Originally posted by Andrew
I advise my customers to go with Dell kit with 3 years warranty.
You can ge cheap PCs and Laptops from the likes of ZoomStorm but if they look that cheap, what hardware wise have they skimped on?
I agree with Pow, buy cheap, buy twice. Which for me costs my company money having to go out there twice when on a fixed monthly support contract.
Hahahahahahah are your customers actually mentally retarded? I only ask as they'd have to be to take IT advice from someone who knows less than a gnats shit about IT
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