Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-AW170Y/Q 18.4-Inch Laptop (2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 1 TB Hard Drive, Blu-ray Drive, Vista Ultimate) Black

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Pros:
Screen- 18.4", Full HD, 1920 by 1080 pixels, 16:9 aspect ratio. Biggest screen I have ever had (or seen) on a laptop.

Photographer's Laptop- Built in compact flash port, runs Adobe Lightroom 2 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 quite quickly, screen makes photos look really good and makes editing easy, included Roxio CD/DVD burning software that makes it easy to to put finished photos on a disk

Powerful system for the price- 4 Gigs of Ram, 320 GB Hard Drive. I have looked at systems with faster Dual Core processors and higher rpm hard drives- at twice the price of this system. Watching TV with an external tuner while running several resource-demanding applications such as Photoshop CS4 on two monitors can slow things down a bit, but that would be a demand on any system.

Full numeric keypad- Something I've always missed in a laptop and now I have it. No more cramping hands on those 'almost useful' regular keyboard adaptations or hauling around an external USB numeric keypad. This is a BIG feature for me.

Built in speakers with subwoofer are remarkably good.

Vista Home Premium- I guess I should turn in my geek card for saying this but I really like Vista- have since it came out. I'm not sure what all the hating it is about as I have found it stable, handy and full of great features. This computer is a replacement for my previous Vista computer that was stolen, and running XP for a few weeks on an backup laptop made me appreciate Vista even more.

Built in web cam and microphone- I've been Skyping on this new computer with family and love it. No extra stuff to carry about and I can video conference. I'm liking it. A lot!

Fingerprint sensor- I didn't think I would use this feature and when I discovered that I could swipe my finger rather than type in a password I use it all the time. I keep my laptop password protected but can be logged in in no time. Another cool feature.

All of this for less than two grand. THAT's a deal!

Cons:
Only 3 USB ports. What was Sony thinking? When there's a USB-compatible everything available now? While not a huge tragedy with all the USB hubs out there, I still think this is a design flaw. But it's the worst I could find in this great computer.

Other thoughts:

Docking. I don't have a real docking station but I plug this computer into a 24" Dell HD monitor with an HDMI cable and the display is GREAT. Even with a Blue-Ray disk. I tossed in a old Compaq USB keyboard and I run a two monitor system with the laptop. Very handy.

Recommended Accessory: The Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000 Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 8000
Love this Bluetooth mouse. I'm a left-handed person and a five button, ambidextrous, wireless, rechargeable mouse is cool.

In closing: I'm very happy with this laptop. Good price, good deal.

Fully loaded. Crystal clear huge 18.4 inch 1920 X 1080 HD LCD backed by NVIDIA's GForce 9600M GT card w/512 ram, Blue Ray DVD ROM, full size keyboard with numeric pad and 64 bit Vista Home Premium OS. Quick to set up, not too much bloatware. Runs graphic intensive programs quite well however a cooling tray such as NZXT's Cryo LX would be beneficial. Not a laptop, somewhat heavy, not something to easily tote from place to place unless you have a rolling case for it. Highly recommended for anyone looking for a desktop replacement with the advantage of being mobile.

I bought this laptop on a sale from Costco online. This laptop has some great features, but it also has some really big downsides.

As an up front warning, I hope you never ever have to deal with Sony's Support center. If you can buy a service contract where you don't have to deal with Sony, do it.

So why did I return it? I have two major reasons.
1. The USB bus inside the PC is underpowered for everything they have running off of it. The fingerprint scanner, USB ports, Bluetooth and camera all apparently run off the same bus.
What does this mean? It means that frequently when the computer comes out of hybernate, sleep, or even screen saver mode, the fingerprint scanner, USB, and bluetooth do NOT work. In my case, I had a USB keyboard, bluetooth mouse and I used the fingerprint scanner to log back in, so I pretty much had to start over using the laptop keyboard and glidepad. If you get in to this state, the computer has trouble shutting down and if you restart it, it will freeze up at a black screen and never finish loading Windows.

They have a registry patch for this issue on their driver site, but it does not work. I applied it and then looked over the changed registry settings just to be sure they had actually changed because I was still having the issue. I even reloaded the laptop from the recovery disks and then applied the patch and it still didn't help. Even turning off hibernate and sleep modes completely does not help, it will do it coming out of the screen saver.

The solution is to unplug the power cord, unplug the battery and then plug everything back in and start it up.

Go here if you are interested in the issue:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=341828

2. Sony's lack of support department stinks. I have been doing technical support in a call center for over 13 years. If I treated my customers the way they treated me, I would either be in my supervisor's office or fired.

I contacted them through email. Apparently they only read the first sentence or two each time I contacted them.

I told them up front that I applied their patch and it didn't help the issue. I had run several scans of my computer to be sure there wasn't some kind of file issue, cleaned up the hard drive with disk cleanup and ccleaner, run every update imaginable, ran a full defrag (even though it was scheduled to run automatically) and it still had the issue. I uninstalled almost every Vaio program to see if it was some rogue program from Sony. I even ran checkdisk and system file checker to be sure there weren't file issues in Windows.

When they replied the first time, they told me to run disk cleanup and defrag. I replied asking for a supervisor or 2nd level tech. I told them that I had already done what they asked but it was rediculous to think disk clean up or defrag would help this issue.

The second Sony reply asked me to apply the patch I had already applied before I sent the first email. If the 2nd tech had read the original email at the bottom, or the first line of the first techs email, they would have known I had already done that. The first techs email started with "I'm sorry the registry patch did not work for you..."

At this point I was disgusted and told them through email that I had returned the laptop to Costco. I begged them to read people's emails in the future and not treat their customers like they treated me. In response I got an email asking me to call them to resolve the issue with the laptop....even though I told them in the first few sentences that I had already returned it.

On the plus side, for what it is, this laptop is very nice. It runs World of Warcraft nicely, I never had issues with surfing the internet, streaming music online and gaming at the same time. I would recommend the 7200 rpm hard drives if you game at all and be sure the laptop has dedicated memory on the video card. This one has 512MB of dedicated video memory which works well with a game like WoW. The dual core processor and 4GB of RAM are helpful. The screen is very bright and has beautiful color.

If you don't mind having to pull out the power plug and battery every day or so OR you don't hook up any USB or bluetooth devices and don't use the fingerprint scanner, you might have a nice laptop. If you don't have to EVER contact Sony, you may like this laptop. Otherwise, do what I did and get an Hewlett Packard HDX 18t instead.

I am beyond pleased even after paying the rather large amount for the top of the line of this AW series - AW-170YQ.

And it is definitely a beast in weight... I had mistakenly always bought the very light laptops and since I work as a Web developer and photographer I was always trying to make things work without enough disk space or horse power and then there is the lack of screen real estate. This just satisfies it all... I was always worried I wanted something light to carry but in the end I don't carry it around all that much - travel with it and take it to clients at times.

The greatest beauty I find is that I now use this as my desktop computer and while I still keep my desktop CPU for back up space and a secondary computer in case this should fail, etc. It is a joy to ALWAYS have all my files all the time. In the past I had always hustle to transfer over to my laptop all the files I might need... now that is never a concern -- saving a lot of time and possible disasters if forgetting a file.

The screen is amazing, keyboard is excellent as well as the mousepad although I love the Sony bluetooth mouse - works perfectly.

I have now had it for about 3 months and I love it everyday.

Only problem I have had is when I put it to sleep and close the lid it seems to wake up again with the lid closed - but I am sure there is a simple reason why this is occurring and can be fixed.

Hi,
my aw120j battery runs out in one and half hour. When I try to buy a backup battery, I found out that they are out of stock and are proprietary - so it will cost me more - about $390 to buy the larger capacity (with 50% more juice). I can buy a computer with that exorbitant $390!!

This computer is too large to lug around and I wish the keys are white. There are too many Vista software running which churns the hard drive, so I turned of superfetch, windows defender, and other services not needed. Google for superfetch and you find techgeek - he has the list of recommended services to turn off.

I purchased my Sony VIAO VGN-AW120J ten months ago. It most aspects it is a wonderful computer. Previously the only problem I had was that the unit locked up, but as the one reviewer stated all you have to do is unplug the unit and then remove the battery. Wait a minute and then reinstall the battery and plug it in. Then all worked well.

But last week my optical drive went out. I purchased the unit in Denver but I am now in Europe. Sony wanted me to send the unit back to the States for repair under warranty. The cost of shipping was prohibitive. I called Sony Europe, but because I purchased it in the States the warranty was invalid and I would have to pay shipping and repair -$881. A HUGE cost. My only suggestion if you purchase this unit and plan to be overseas is to take out the international warranty (I was not told that this was available, but it is - so ask)

I was liking this laptop very much, until the hard drive failed without any notice! Sony tech support was responsive but the tools provided did not help. While the diagnostics of the hard drive indicated no failure on the hard drive, I was not able to 'rescue data' due to the internal hard drive undetected error. But Sony tech and an iTOK tech assured me that data can still be recovered. Paid $230 to an iTOK tech support to come and recover my data but unfortunately, he could not at all recover anything from the hard drive. Lost 3 months worth of files, including time and money dealing with both Sony and iTOK tech support. Sony now promises to send a technician to replace my hard drive with a brandnew one. I think I should buy the extended warranty and also plan on backing up my files to an external hard drive every week!

Some other observations: Sometimes, hibernate does not work. And sometimes, IE browser freezes forever!

Totally problematic! Just one year later, the BD/DVD drive no longer reads DVDs or burns DVDs or CDs. It was able to continue to play audio CDs but when Sony tech suggested (after many, many days of diagnosing and editing registry links) to do a complete system recovery, it got even worse! Now the DVD drive won't eject my DVD! To repair it by Sony, the cost would be a whopping $350.

Not recommended. I bought this for all the multimedia projects I have to do, and it's failed in every respect. I got a lemon!!!

The computer arrived in two days and exactly as advertised.

I have spent the weeks since delivery learning the features of both the Sony and Vista Home Premium. To say there is a lot to learn would be a gross understatement. It will take several more weeks to get completly comfortable.

One point I would suggest long term mouse users consider is that you order a mouse with the computer. I found it very difficult to get used to the mouse surface even after several adjustments.

The screen is incredible and I have decided not to buy a seperate monitor.

It has been very easy to set up wireless networking both at home and on the road at various airports. However, the size of this computer makes it difficult to travel with (it dosen't fit under a airplane seat and cannot be opened for use unless you are in first class).

All-in-all I would definitely recommend this computer as a desk top/side replacement.

I had a 17' laptop with blu ray also, decided to change it for this one because the bigger screen the full HD, the 4 gigs of ram, and the great gforce 9600GT, have to say it all paid off it's a great purchase, the 64 bit vista works nice, fast, and smooth, the resolution of the screen is amazing. Great thing is this one is lighter than the 17'

One thing I really enjoy is the keyboard, nice spacing and bigger keys, so you don't get tired of a long writing.

everything you spect of this laptop after you see it here, it is.

if you are searching for a entertainment power laptop, for gaming, or media, to watch HD movies just wherever you are, this is for you.

I like this 18.4" laptop, but, like all Sony Vaios, it is missing a key feature: Sony does not enable Intel Virtualization, which means you cannot virtualize 64-bit operating systems, using tools like Virtual PC or VMWare Workstation.

So, if you're planning to load a virtual version of 64-bit XP or 64-bit Linux, don't try it with a Sony Vaio. It will not work. HP and Acer have models very similar to (and less expensive than) the Sony AW series; they will work for 64-bit virutalization.