Customer Reviews

Sony VAIO VGN-FZ485U/B 15.4" Laptop (2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 300 GB Hard Drive, Vista Ultimate)

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

 

 

First off, I wasn't too excited buying a laptop with Vista installed (I would much prefer Windows XP Pro) but as my luck would have it, all electronic stores were selling laptops with Vista pre-installed. I just got this laptop yesterday and after a half day of removing bloatware and installing drivers for my printer and router, I'm pleased to declare that it's a blazingly-fast laptop. It's much quieter and much cooler than my 2-year-old Vaio S460 (which by the way is still in good working condition). This FZ470E configuration probably has the best bang for the buck among the FZ series. It has a Bluray player with DVD burning capabilities that averaged 20 minutes for a 4.7GB DVD copy. Its NVIDIA GeForce 8400M graphics card renders high-def video seamlessly without the choppiness and slow buffer rates of older versions. Another nice feature is the 802.11n wi-fi capability for zippier broadband downloads. The xbrite glossy screen boasts vivid colors especially on bluray movies (I watched Spiderman 3 last night; it was amazingly sharp for a laptop). The HDMI output probably is its nicest feature as I am able to view my screen on a larger high-def monitor to watch DVDs and bluray movies. Despite its misgivings, I am overall pleased with this purchase and am pleasantly surprised with the beautiful interface of Vista.

I own this machine and like it very much. When one spends several thousand on a Vaio it should not be filled with useless trail software. It took hours to remove. It never comes off completely as there is no incentive to write the uninstall so that it removes all the files. Sony builds fine hardware but has many problems in writing good software for peripherals. When I bought this machine the was no option to buy without the junk software. The other problem is that SONY DOES NOT GIVE YOU DISK MEDIA FOR THE OS. The OS is on a hidden drive. I bought this computer knowing the junk software but was surprised by the lack of OS media considering I paid 150.00 xtra for Vista Ult. I really question as to whether I would buy another.

Prompt delivery from Amazon as well as being price competitive.

Great screen resolution, excellent battery life with fast processing. A lot of sony software pre-loaded though this now seems to be the normal with many h/w manufactures. Very minor point that was overcome by ignoring or switching off the flash-ups.

No default carry case comes with this offer - so do you consider adding one to your basket.

Strong recommendation from a happy Sony VAIO VGN-FZ410E/B owner.

In order to be fair, i couldn't say at first that i was disappointed with the product, as a mather of fact, i was in heaven when it arrived.
This VAIO, works wonderful. There are only a few things that i didn't like: for example, not recieving ANY COPY of drivers or installation CDs for any software, shareware, and operating system on the computer. It's also a little bit heavy, but i think it doesn't come out of what i've planned.

This is a great laptop, very powerful and the screes is awesome. The only thing should be better is the battery life, it's not very good. But, this laptop is perfect, silent, fast, excellent screen and it's not heavy. I RECOMMEND IT.

To be clear, I bought the VGN-FZ460E from Amazon.com, which comes with a Blu-Ray drive and 2GB RAM.

First of all, this laptop is great. It's the second one I have ever purchased, and a much needed upgrade from my 6 year old HP. The wireless is fantastic, being built-in to the laptop, and nearly everything else was more or less plug-and-play. 3 SIDE USB ports make plugging in a drive or a peripheral utterly painless. Performance is excellent - I can run a disk defragger without noticing while I watch a movie, or surf the web (or write a review on Amazon.com). The appearance is exactly what I wanted - a laptop that I could take into a classroom or the office, yet could run games, movies, etc if it needed to (yet to test out the NVIDIA graphics card). What really surprised me was how quiet it runs...if not for the power light, I wouldn't even know it was running. It makes absolutely no noise...!

Things to keep in mind: it's rather large...not quite the 17" size, but certainly a worthly desktop replacement. It's not very light, and does not seem to take battery life into much consideration, although if you put it on low power and turn off the wireless, you can get up to 3 hours of battery life writing a paper, or something else that doesn't require a lot of juice.

My main issues with it, and why it doesn't earn 5 stars, are not at all hardware-related -- rather, it's the software that has been quite an annoyance. Before I rant about it, I must say that Vista looks incredible - the fading in and out of the windows, and the overall "soft" feel of it reminds me of my last swedish massage...very nice. However, comma, two things really irked me while doing the initial set up: 1) Vista's compatibility problems, and 2) Bloatware.

1) Vista - I ordered AT&T DSL concurrently (new place) and apparently they haven't gotten around to making their installation software Vista-compatible...this was 6 hours on the phone over three days, five hours of which were on hold with customer service reps...not sure if this was Microsoft or AT&T's fault, but it was certainly not at all what I expected of an OS that had been out for over a year. I have never needed to deride a company's level of service until that(those) day(s). Next, Vista is not yet compatible with Flash player - the one that plays all those video-like commercials without Media player running. IE crashed every other day until I turned it off. Reinstalling did not help.

2) Sony has installed about two screenlengths worth of (almost all useless) software that I have yet to use after two weeks. Much of it is free trial software along with the Vaio suite of software, which I have yet to use. I deleted most of the trial ware, until I hit upon Network Magic. I'm sure this program works wonders for some people out there, but after uninstalling it, it refuses to disappear, re-uninstall, or reinstall - it continues to haunt my computer. On one occasion, it even prevented installation of another program I downloaded off the web (can't remember the program). None of this would have been an issue had the software not pre-existed on my otherwise-great-to-use-Vaio to begin with.

One more point - no OS disks, and this is almost inexplicable - I had to call Sony customer service in order for them to email me instructions on how to make a set of recovery disks. Without looking on the weblogs, I wouldn't have even known that this computer had a backup partition on it. Sony's website was no help.

So, bottom line, this is an exceptional piece of equipment, with some not-so-exceptional software built into it. I was able to get quite a deal on Amazon, where I was only paying $100 extra for the Blu-Ray drive compared to other brands and models out there (the price has since changed). This, coupled with Sony's reputation for excellence, drove me to buy a Vaio, even though I tend to be a more value-oriented customer.

The laptop looks great and the construction material is solid with good quality. Standard USB ports but with nice SD slot handy. Camera quality is sufficient for my use and keyboard is quiet with low stroke. The whole computer looks neat and clean. With upgraded router, we are able to use the maximum speed for wireless connection (N), which is great! However, it came with a lot of commercial software that we have to uninstall them one by one... but i guess that is a common frustration when buying consumer laptop. The audio quality is average... I only wish it would come with non-glossy LCD screen.

Spent my savings on this computer for college. Computer locked up after attempting to install a purchased version of Microsoft Office Student to replace the trial version. After over an hour with Sony Vaio tech support, could not remove the trial version. As per their instructions I had to run a systme recovery and reformat the hard drive and then reload microsoft vista updates - took over 2 hours. Then tried to uninstall the trial version of Microsoft Office Student - again unsuccessfull. Sony Vaio tech support recommended that I repeat the system recovery and reformat the hard drive a second time. I refused,googled the problem and found the solution - go to the Microsoft Office site, download a trial version of Office and once downloaded select the uninstall option. This worked, installed the purchased version of Office Student, all worked well till my DVD drive 3 weeks later could not be recognized. After about 2 hours with Sony Vaio tech support they could not get it to work and now will send a technician to my home to attempt to fix the problem. Dell would replace the unit! Do not buy this computer!!!

First I want to note that for few year's I've worked in a tech support and maintenance office and have seen very close and inside a very lot of laptops in my life, starting '98.

I bought my FZ480 from Amazon Sept.2008 and using for about 9 months already.

My first OWN PC with Vista that I was aware that much, BUT would never install XP on this laptops. Works just fine. Never had a dump, never halted, sounds unbelievable, I know. Software I'm running often: Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop CS3, Flash CS3, etc. Nuendo+VST, Nero, and a lot of other staff... Have Symantec Corporate Edition for Vista, protects perfectly...

very useful to have bluray+hdmi (1080P) but sometimes you can't stream out depending on movie license.

Battery runs about 3 hours with 80% brightness. Gets hot after few hours of usage, so you can not keep it on your legs in summer :))))

Not that much heavy for 15", good for traveling. Great wifi receiver!
Cam+mic :) also has good sensitivity.

after hibernate wakes up in seconds, and system boot overall is quick even with loaded software after 9 months...

It's interesting that in this time period the price raise from $1,7K to $1.9K :)

I knew what I'm buying that is why it fits my expectations...
Good, fast, stylish (SonyStyle!), excellent screen+bluray+hdmi, wifi+blutooth, everything you may need for nowadays ...

dell has the same model but about $500 cheaper, but this is Sony ;)

good luck!

I've owned the VGN-FZ460E for about six months now. This is a superb product. There's only one negative I've found so far. It plays blu-ray discs but not at Full HD 1080 as advertised. If you go to the display settings you'll notice that the highest resolution is 1280 x 800. 800 is still HD but not Full HD 1080. You'll see a Full HD 1080 sticker under the blu-ray sticker on the lower left side of this laptop. Maybe Sony put the Full HD 1080 sticker on it to show it plays Full HD 1080 media...but this laptop only supports HD at 800.