Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO PCG-GRT170 Laptop (2.80-GHz Pentium 4, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I just purchased this PC and I love it! I have set it up on a home network using a linksys broadband router with my DSL internet connection and it works like a dream. It comes loaded with an integrated wireless Lan card and the set-up was easy. The PC itself is really fast and the display is beautiful (the 16" screen is really awesome).The DVD movies I watched looked great. It comes with some really good software too. My only complaint is the battery does not last long enough (about 1.5 hours). Another issue is the PC is quite heavy. Since I am using this as a desktop replacement system and will not travel with it that much, this is not a big concern for me. Also it does not come with a floppy drive, but you can purchase one from Sony or ebay for one of the USB ports. Overall, I am very pleased and absolutely love it! It may seem expensive, but you get a CD/DVD-RW combo drive, good software, and lots of storage. It even has a slot for your memory cards to view photos etc.

Well, after having read some of the online reviews I'm surprised, that the reviewers failed to point out (or notice?) a significant performance issue with this model.
To begin with, I bought mine at Amazon in mid-July, and - having previously read the raw specs of this laptop over and over again comparing them to numerous other competitors' models - I eagerly anticipated the moment to finally un-box mine, fire it up, and dive right into my multimedia projects.
My first impression after having crancked it up was disappointment, as the laptop seemed to respond slower, than my older HP Omnibook 6100 with a 1.2Ghz CPU.
Having tweeked everything I could, and checked, then double checked, that the CPU was indeed running at 2.8Ghz I turned my attention to the hard drive. It turns out, that - at least at the time I bought mine - SONY chose to include the slowest 60GB HD then available on the market: a Hitachi/IBM drive with 2MB cache and 4200 RPM. Unfortunately, the specs of the drive, other than its capacity, are not disclosed in the technical details available online. Considering everything else, that's been thrown into this machine in the name of performance, being frugal on the hard drive is a crying shame.
At the cost of ($),- I bought and installed the flagship of the Hitachi/IBM notebook drive family, the 60GB 7200 (yes, that's seventy-two-hundred) RPM drive with 8MB cache. The machine is finally purring as it should have from day one, and crunches through multimedia applications from video editing to games, like an Apple Powerbook.
If your GRT170 came with a slower HD, you owe it to yourself to upgrade to get the most out of this otherwise excellent notebook PC.

This is a great toy for power graphic user!
Run multiple high graphic applications (CADs mainly) and along with live webcam in the background, the system handles them all with ease.
The mouse buttons are a little annoying for they are a litle noisy, especially if you work late in the room at nite.
Other than that this is not only a best desktop replacement but a very nice system with fully loaded, higher end technology.
However, don't count on this as a travelmate because it's a 9 lbs. toy, and you will have to get an extra large case to lugging it around. Any standard large case won't do for its irregular size.

Anyway, it's a Best Buy...for now!!! until there is another better Best in couple months down the ever changing tech road.

I've never had more problems with a laptop than this one. According to the specs, it's great-- a fast CPU, lots of RAM, a great video card and a huge hard disk, plus a DVD burner! And look at that screen! It MUST be good! .. too bad it isn't.

The CPU is fast-- but it's a Pentium 4 DESKTOP processor. Not only does it suck up the battery life, it produces obscene amounts of heat, making the fan stay on all the time. So, you can hear the machine across the room at all times.

The video card is incompatible with the latest drivers in most cases, and has huge incompatibilities with the latest games. Many won't even begin to run.

The DVD Drive can only burn at the most abysmally slow speeds. Writing a full DVD will take over 2 hours.

Battery life is horrendous. You can expect 45 minutes if all you are doing is word processing. If you raise the CPU usage above 20%, you can expect 30 minutes. If you use it to the absolute maximum, expect 20. This is on the lowest screen brightness, folks. You can't finish watching a DVD (Forget about burning one) on this machine. And Sony wants $300 for another one.

The chipset is SiS, the cheapest out there; so don't expect reliability. This machine crashes more than anything I've used in my entire life. Nothing ever works as it should.

My machine had to be repaired twice now, and I need to bring it in tomorrow for MORE repairs. Here's a short list of what is wrong ..

- CPU fan nearly stopped. CPU overheated and crashed all the time.
- 802.11x card stopped working entirely.
- Speakers kept emitting bursts of deafening static.
- Constant squealing noise from the hard drive.
- 10 gb of the disk was unusable.
- The left mouse button jammed.
- One USB port was upside-down and didn't work at all.
- 30 minutes of battery life.
- Wired ethernet rarely worked for longer than a few hours. Had to reboot constantly to keep it connected.
- Most program crashed, especially games, even with the latest drivers, DirectX, and service packs.
- 8 keys fell off under normal use.
- Screen backlight began burning out; screen brightness would change at random and flash on and off.
- Battery cover fell off and could not be reattached.
- Most CDs could not be read. Drive takes over 30 seconds to spin up a disc for reading.
- DVD playback is jumpy. Tons of read errors.

Avoid this laptop. Get something that you can trust-- from a company you can trust.

I purchased this laptop July 2003. The primary use was for using voice recognition software to dictate science manuscripts. Because of a repetitive strain injury to my arms, I use voice dictation software to avoid typing. I was attracted to this model because it promised excellent recording capabilities which logically should mean that it would be good for voice recognition. (Some laptop manufacturers make models that have a lot of electronic noise, making voice recognition poor.)

The laptop met my expectations and had a very low electronic noise. The result was that I was able to dictate scientific manuscripts without many mistakes.

However I give the unit a one star rating because of the extremely poor or nonexistent technical support provided by the Company. Shortly after I purchased the unit I had some technical questions and went online to an address provided on my notebook. I then found that to send a note to Sony asking for help, I had to have a question for which Sony had already posted an answer. I know that sounds crazy, but that is the way the system that worked. I had to create a dummy problem by selecting from a pick list an issue that did not occur on my computer. I was then able to get to a screen from which I could post information about the actual problem. Technical support did solve the problem.

Today I left my computer on with Microsoft Windows running. When I returned after a few minutes, I had a blue screen of death. The computer was no longer in Windows and could no longer boot back to Windows. I had managed to obtain a telephone number for technical support when I had my earlier question.

to my astonishment technical support told me that I was not entitled any longer to technical support even though I have had the unit less than a year. I made 2 different calls. The different technicians both said the same. Technical support is provided only during the first year after a model line is introduced for sale. So it is actually possible I guess for someone to purchase a brand-new computer for which there is absolutely no technical support because the line was introduced a year or so ago.

Fortunately I had purchased an extended warranty from Circuit City and took the unit into a local store for shipment off to he a air center.

if you are thinking about purchasing any Sony computer beware of the technical support policy. This policy contrasts with the Unlimited support from computer makers such as Dell where telephone technical support is available as long as you have the computer. the one star rating for the unit is also based on the fact that it died after less than a year of use.

I wish I had flushed so much money down the toilet. My laptop has so far experienced TWO severe problems sending the laptop to Vaio's support center. Useless to mention how much I spent struggling with the laptop trying to make it work. The laptop came back yesterday with new problems and they couldn't care less. My worst buy ever.
I also have a Toshiba laptop that I purchased for $1500 LESS that the Vaio. Ironically I am more satisfied with the cheaper Toshiba.

I performed several self repairs since I'm a certified tech. What a waste of parts. The display died again. This time the cold cathode element went out. And it can't be replaced. To dig down to the element requires the destruction of the display. I had been using this unit for several years connected to the docking station. Also had it on a cooling base on a desk top system. I finally decided to see about the image dropping out and don't bother. This should be labeled as disposable only.

Pros
Cheap ($[...] 4 years ago) for what you get.

Cons
Expect it to only work for a year in good form!

The Bottom Line
[...]It is junk after a year due to slow degradation of the power system and Sony knows it.

I bought this computer because I wanted a machine that I could play games on and be able to take with me as a carryon because I was always moving around. This laptop is heavier than other models and also had a nice 16" screen. I don't mind the weight, since the price and power were right.

After owning it for between 6 months and a year it sometimes would overheat and shut down. This is actually quite preferable compared to some laptops that don't have an auto-shutdown feature and will simply fry themselves.

But it turns out this machine has some kind of flaw in the power system that causes it degrade over time and shut down more readily the older it gets. Between 1 and 2 years of ownership, the computer REQUIRED a cooling platform to be underneath it to play games and run movies.

Sony's customer service is non-existant. "Too bad, [...]!" could be their catch-phrase.

After 2 years, during the summer the cooling plate was not enough. Now I have a giant box fan set up as a little table that blows straight upward to keep the thing running.

I did some research on it. A russian guy apparently can fix some models of Vaio by replacing some very inexpensive parts, and has a website where he shows detailed steps with pictures on how to fix it. My machine is not the right model to be fixed.

I tried running the computer with it open (man is it hard to get it open if someone doesn't show you how) and it immediately shut down after finishing booting up windows XP when it was open. You would think with it open it would be cooler, but actually when you have the case open the little fan no longer has a channel where the air is forced to move through. Without out the cramped channel, air doesn't circulate past the important hot area and it overheats immediately.

So, I'm quite proud of my "orcish engineering" and how my laptop is now set up as a desktop.

The nice 16.1" screen no longer works and flickers and goes dead. So I also have a different monitor attached to it.

Since it is silly to have the laptop computer in front of me with a dead screen I picked up a cheap keyboard to plug into it to type on instead of a dead looking laptop that sits on a giant, upward blowing fan.

The combo DVD drive became very finicky and only worked intermittantly, so I got an external DVD drive. I'm not sure if the DVD drive would work at all anymore. It is not worth the hassle to find out and I dont' care anymore.

The hard drive isn't very big, and I've been afraid the entire system is going to die so I've got an external Hard Drive hooked up to it so I don't lose my information when it finally does croak. Surprisingly, despite a lot of the peripheral devices on this thing dying... the main components still function so I keep using it.

This laptop has only 3 USB ports, so I had to get a USB hub to plug the external hard drive, external DVD drive, keyboard, mouse, and other components for various games.

This thing doesnt' have enough memory (512) to run the best games anymore. I hate to spend money on memory for such a piece of junk though. I keep expecting it to die, but then it just keeps on living. My plan was to strip the external hard drive and DVD drive out of their cases to use in my next computer... when I break down and get a new computer... along with the monitor, mouse, speakers...

I already have alot of the components for a new computer attached to this piece of junk to keep it usable. I don't like to throw good money after bad, but I justify it in that I can reuse all the external components later.

ISN'T THAT THE LIMIT. I NEED TO HAVE A FAN RUNNING OUTSIDE OF THIS THING TO KEEP IT FROM MELTING AND OFF IT GOES AND ON IT GOES. I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM WITH AN HP PAVILLION. WHAT DOES IT? IT'S JUST NUTS

I purchased one of these when they first came out in 2003 and it was very pricey but has served me well for over 3 years!. It has been traveled with constantly and is very durable(though heavy). I was reading the bad reviews and had to post my experience. This laptop is a "desktop replacement" , hence why it is heavy and runs hot with it's "non mobile" P4. Truly the battery is useless but try hooking your desktop to a battery and see how long it would last. This was one of the fastest laptops I had ever used and still outruns many NEW ones IMO.. Only now in 2006 is the vid card starting to show its age with games but it still does respectably on most. I read people writing about "only" 10 gigs of hard drive space? It has a partitioned hard drive, used the "d" drive to load your software lol, its there. well, theres my personal take on it, only downfall is don't try to use it on your lap as you could roast weenies off the back and bottom of the laptop!!.