Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-FS742/W 15.4" Laptop (Intel Pentium M Processor 740, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+R Dbl Layer/DVD+/-RW Drive)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I was reluctant to spend the premium you pay for the Sony name, but now I have no regrets. I tried Toshiba and HP machines in the same price range that had better specs, but the build quality (especially the keyboards) and looks weren't in the same league as the Sony Vaio. The keyboard is solid with a good feel. The touchpad is great. The screen is bright, the colors are brilliant, and it feels sturdy when opening and closing it. I mostly use it for wireless internet surfing, email, office tools and some games, and it's great for that. I don't rely on the battery much, so I can't comment on battery life, but I do know it's better than my IBM Thinkpad I use at work. All in all, I'm very happy with my Sony.

I purchased my laptop about a week after this model came out. I immediately swapped out a 256 stick of memory for a 1GB that I purchased online (as this laptop only has 2 slots). I can't say I experienced a HUGE performance difference, but I do notice that it gets less bogged down when I have 3 or more programs open that hog system resources.

Processing Performance: Boots up most programs in a flash. Processing power is all relative to your usage, but I use this for web development (MX Studio) and there are no hiccups in performance.

Screen: The screen was the kicker. I have not seen a laptop screen so bright which comes in handy when I am viewing with ambient daylight. It is crystal clear and a joy to work with spreadsheets and graphic manipulation programs alike.

Form Factor: Very thin and well balanced.

Keyboard: Excellent keys. 2nd only to my MacAlly IceKey that I use with my PC (that I have used). There is a slight wiggle about the keys in their upright position that is better that most keyboards I've used. It has a soft travel, not as crisp as mac/certain IBM notebooks I've used. Still more than acceptable performance.

Speakers: The only major downfall of this laptop. The sound is average to slightly below, but volume sucks. The location of the speakers (above keyboard) is not such a good idea when it seems as thought the speakers are aimed toward outerspace. The stereo imaging is lacking as a result. If you are a music enthusiast, this is a hard call. Either get some good headphones, external speakers, or find another solution. My 1999 Dell had the speakers on the sides and were aimed toward the user which created great stereo imagery and the tiny speakers were crystal clear. With all the attention to detail the Japanese are notorious for, I'm surprised this got overlooked. Good for your occasional background music nevertheless.

Build Quality: On par for a 1k laptop. Nothing to beat up, but will do well without any droppage.

Wifi: Excellent range/performance. Discard the preinstalled Sony junk software and use the built-in windows utility.

Mouse: Do yourself a favor and buy a wireless notebook mouse for $20. Well worth it. I am proficient on touchpad, but I'ts inevitably cumbersome for most programs.

Everything else: Pretty much not worth mentioning. Everything else is trivial to me and works well for what it does.

Overall Recommendation: Although they could have thrown in an integrated webcam, this is an excellent value for a laptop on the cheap. If you are an audiophile, go look at this at Circuit City and evaulate from there. Don't expect this machine to last 5 years with normal wear and tear, but do expect to be dazzled by the bang for your buck value. Stay away from the XBRITE-ECO which is in the model below this as it only has half the lumens (screen brightness).

I've had the machine about a month now and don't have a single complaint. Have had to call tech support a couple of times, for stuff *I* screwed up and they all spoke English and were very helpful. (Told me they no longer outsource and he said he was located in Ft Meyers FL.) This is my first notebook but I did a lot of research and felt this one gave me the most bang for the buck. The Keyboard is very comfortable, and the screen is awesome, (very bright). My only complaint is the sound...sounds like tin. My desktop is a Sony, which is why I was comfortable buying this laptop. Its six years old and still running strong...never had a problem with it. I would buy this or any other Sony again in a heartbeat.

I finally got the FS742/W after pondering over it for more than a month. I was looking forward to the new FJ170/80 series that just came out last month with a smaller footprint and a slightly faster hard drive.

However based on a lot of reading I did over the web, the FS700 series seemed to give the best value for money. From reviews and personal observation, the build quality is great, the screen is genuine X-Brite (and not the eco-Brites as on the FJ170s) and the difference is so obvious when compared to my older Sony LCD lying next to this notebook. The keys are great in addition to general peripherals lay-out. I would have preffered one of the USB inputs to be on the other side, and not all 3 together to the right side - just a personal preference.

I did however get additional memory (bought one 1 gig module to replace the 2 X 256 mb that comes with it). The current drive at 4200 rpm is OK and not a major concern (I have read the faster drives make more noise). Also formatted the notebook (REMEMBER to create the restore DVDs first) and then re-installed Windows OS using the first restore DVD. I then manually installed most of the needed drivers using the second DVD and un-installed anything in there I did not find useful. I still need to clean it up a bit and get the 2 Function buttons to work again (when I get some time). I watched a 2.5 hour DVD movie on it last night and the battery was completely drained by then.

In addition to the extra memory, bought myself a Silver corded optical VAIO mouse that goes very well with the silver/white exterior of the notebook. I have ordered the VAIO notebook AMC3 sleeve just incase I want to pop it into a messenger bag. I am not a serious gamer so the integrated video is not an issue for me. I've had it for a week now and am glad I made the right decision ( based on price and also comparing it looks wise to all the other notebooks on display at retail stores).

This product is excellent not only in terms of price but also in terms of performance. I particularly would like to appreciate its display quality. Its really awesome, crystal clear picture with more viewing angle. Also appreciable is the sleekness. Its really light as compared to other similar brands.

Purchase worth.
Vipin Sharma.

This is my second notebook. last one I bought in summer 2004 was toshiba A45-s250. this one is nice and stylish. however nothing is perfect and so is this machine. sony fills up every notebook with there crappy and buggy software which eats up your RAM and keep on sitting there until you dont uninstall 90% of the junk. I think a message needs to be send to all notebook assemblers that please do not install crap on notebook and let the user decide what he/she wants.
anyway as far as machine is concerned after uninstalling lot of junk this is working great. I wish it'd have bluetooth though and double layer dvd writer should have supported dvd-r DL as well since nowadays it is becoming common. another issue is sony does not provide restoration disks so you have to make one yourself.
as far as display is concerned its pretty impressive. I tried playing quicktime HD trailers and even though the playback was bit jerky you can easily make out the depth of display.
another thing which I think sony should have given apart from all the software is direct transfer of videos to PSP in avc/h.264 format as bundled mpeg4-sp is not very impressive.

anyways machine is a good perfomer after tweaking.

Standard sony style display, good software comparing with the prior laptop models. Very poor battery life so if you are planning to use it while on travel ready to spare $300 for a new battery. Light weight, nice slick shape than the A150 model, great keyboard, nice looks.

I bought my Sony Vaio Fs742 from a bricks and mortar store (BB)
I fell in love instantly! Great DISPLAY. It's awesome, very bright and crisp, better than my TV. I found the speed to be a bit unimpressive. I've had a DELL (hate that company) Inspiron 1100 that I've had for two years and the speed seemed about the same. The styling is great on the Sony and gets a lot of compliments. I found the buttons on the mouse pad thing awkwardly small. I had this machine two weeks, to the day, and the screen went out. I was very dissapointed. I ALMOST bought another one, but I've heard several other stories about the screens acting up from the Geek Squad. I think next time I will buyer a cheaper, more utilitarian machine. I am very dissapointed that the Sony wasn't a better machine, I loved everything else about it, other than it's lack of an S-Video port. If you buy one good luck and get an extended warranty, you'll end up using it.

It's also too expensive for what you get. It's like my Motorola Razor, looks good, but not practical.

THis computer was great for the first year, then it started having ploblems. The battery completely died, as in the computer refuses to start up with the battery in it claiming there is something wrong with it. The screen now flashes weird little lines across it every now and then. One day it just decided it would take 25 minutes to boot up, literally. It would boot up in about 7 minutes, then after that, it would take 20-25 minutes before I could open a single application. Windows would sit there and I'd click on the icon for internet explorer and it would sit there and act like it was thinking, then 5 mintues later internet explorer would open, and 5 mintues later it would be able to display my homepage. I took it to a specialist who scanned it and said there was no malware/viruses on it. I reformtted it to fix the problem. This was the 4th time I have had to reformat the computer. Once it just lost 30 gigs of information. The folders were there, they were just empty. And no I did not accidentally delete the stuff and I am the only one who touches the computer as it stays with me all day at college. Nothing but a pain after year one. Once it just forgot that it could play sound. It said it had drivers, the volume was up, but it wouldn't play any sound. That was another reformat fix at the advice of a specialist.

If you are considering a Vaio laptop, please take heed of the negative reviews on here and consider another brand. Just two months ago, the touchpad on my fiancee's Vaio randomly stopped working one night. Since we typically use a mouse, we deactivated the pad and went about our business. About 2 weeks ago, her laptop started getting into the habit of taking 1 1/2-2 hours to boot up, and now will not boot up whatsoever. Luckily, she bought the extended warranty, so hopefully the service won't be as bad as what others have experienced.

My parents have also had tremendous trouble with their Vaio laptop. About 6 months ago, the motherboard crashed...conveniently 1 month after the 1-year warranty expired. Sony refused to help at all and made them pay for a recovery disk, since they said that my parents should've executed the "back up and restore" function when they started their laptop up the very first day. After being out of commission for over a month, they got it back and it seemed to be running fine until last week when the harddrive crashed on them. Their friend and her sister, both who have Vaio laptops, also had similar problems with their computers.

Sony has obviously taken the eye of the ball when it comes to Quality Control the past couple of years, and should be ashamed of the product they are putting out.