I HARDLY USED THE LAPTOP. BUT WHEN I STARTED USING IT, IT STARTED MAKING A SOUND THAT STARTED GETTING WORSE AND IT STARTED TO SHUT OFF AFTER WORKING FOR LESSER PERIODS. THE PROBLEM WAS IT WAS PURCHASED IN EUROPE & COULD NOT BE TAKEN BACK AS ONE YEAR HAD ALREADY PASSED. I TOOK IT TO THE INDIA SONY CENTER & THEY EVEN REFUSED TO TOUCH AS IT WAS MEANT FOR EU MARKET. RIDICULOUS!!!. I JUST GAVE UP AFTER SHOWING IT TO LOCAL PEOPLE WHO COULD'T DO ANYTHING. NOW I AM STUCK WITH A MACHINE, WHICH IS OLD, THE MOTHERBOARD IS THE PROBLEM AND IF I WANT TO GET ANYTHING DONE IT WILL BE COSTLY ENOUGH SO THAT I WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITH A NEW MACHINE. I ALMOST DON'T KNOW HOW THE MACHINE WAS BUT THERE WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE MOTHERBOARD IN THE FIRST INSTANCE AND SO IT WAS SOLD TO ME BY PC WORLD AT A LESSER PRICE (RELATIVELY). I AM NOW STUCK WITH A USELESS PIECE OF HARDWARE FROM SONY. SINCE THEN I HAVE STOPPED GETTING SONY ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT.

I purchased mine in June 2003 and the hardware hasn't missed a beat. Wish I could say the same for the operating system. Battery life was never great and hasn't got any better but I use it as a desktop replacement anyway.

The DVD-RW drive on my Sony Vaio PCG-FR215S laptop computer has had faults and been replaced, and always around Christmas time.

It had to be repaired within the first was 6 months after I purchased it, then again 12 months after the last repair, and now the quality of the CD's it is burning is lower than just a month ago.

I bought a Sony VAIO PCG-FR215S laptop for £1,350 in 2003 having chosen the machine mainly for its large, high-resolution screen (16inch, 1600 x 1200) and in the belief that Sony laptops were some of the most reliable on the market. However, when the computer was just over 14 months old (not quite three months out of warranty), the keyboard failed completely, and I had to purchase an external USB keyboard to be able to continue using it. I wrote to Sony, arguing that such a major fault was unacceptable, and asked them to repair the product at their own expense. Their response was to offer me a derisory 10% discount on the cost of repairs.

Then, about a month later, the screen flickered briefly and died completely! I was left with an expensive laptop that was effectively reduced to a desktop machine that could only be used with an external keyboard and an external monitor.

So, here was a laptop that had been used carefully for about five hours a day, in a benign environment, had never suffered any kind of physical damage, and had only been taken out of the house on a handful of occasions, and yet had developed two major faults in the space of just sixteen months! Sony's response to my complaints was simply to argue that their machines "are some of the most reliable available on the market".

Not one, but two major faults in just over a year. Reliable? Judge for yourself. My advice: think very carefully before purchasing a Sony VAIO laptop - unless, that is, you intend using it as a desktop machine.

Sony have made some good laptops in the past few years. The Sony Vaio PCG-FR215S is no exception. After having mine for over 18 months, normally I am getting itchy hands to replace computers after 12, I feel no desire to get rid of it. As with any computer, it throws tantrums sometimes, but being fair on the poor little mite I have so much software constantly running on mine, it only rests at night (sometimes not at all) and it is bound to cause system instability at times. Unlike my old Packard Bell desktop which is a sore point (lost me hundreds of hours of work on several occaions, wouldn't let me back things up and had all technical support engineers baffled), I haven't lost any work on this one and if it does freeze, normally leaving it for 10 minutes to throw it's rattle out of it's cot is good enough, then it's fine and nothing has been lost. The construction of the computer is typical of Sony, as tough as cement. However, the flip side to this, is the design is about as appealing as cement. This is one ugly laptop, but to someone who doesn't care about such things, that is highly academic. After 18 months of field work, dropping it, sitting on it a couple of times, nothing has fazed it. Okay, it was a bit pricey , but the spec is generous, the build solid, and you get what you pay for. The 2.6P4 may not be the fastest ever, but it is competent and never fails to perform. The Integrated Graphics, whilst normally I hate them, is actually very good. The graphics memory can be adjusted between 32, 64 and 128mb, obviously with compromises to the RAM, but you do actually get half-decent graphics performance. Actually, it's not bad at all for a computer which is a business tool not a games machine. I do like to play the occasional game (call it mindless escapism) and with the likes of Quake and the latest Microsoft titles, all run smoothly with good textures (and I only have mine set on 32mb to maxime the RAM). Battery life isn't good, but as I said I have a lot of heavy software running so ignore that comment. The Onyx screen has to be the best I have ever seen on any computer of this size and cost. It is crystal clear, vibrant and sharp. It cannot be viewed from all angles though, maybe useful on a plane or train when someone you don't know or don't like is sitting next to you. It is heavy for a laptop, but see earlier about build quality. You can't have both. It is also remarkably easy to use, with no little obscure buttons put everywhere on the case. Everything is controlled through Windows. This is a fantastic laptop, I have no plans to replace mine as yet and it will undoubtedly give me a couple more years of loyal service. I will replace it with another Vaio; I'm impressed.

I have had this Sony Vaio now for about 2 months and compared to my last one, also a Sony Vaio (PCG-FX401) it has been excellent. Good specifications, memory is 512Mb, pentium 4, 2.66Ghz processor, 40 GB hard drive, probably better spec laptops on the market, but compare to the other one I had, this is all I need. The old one seemed slow and tended to run out of memory, but this one, no problems at all. I would recommend it to anyone. It may not be a bargain at around £1300 but considering it also comes with a DVD writer and CD writer too, I recon it's all I will need for a few years.