i bought the sony vaio e series in 2008 within 6 month the screen blanked out and the battery went bad. I took it to sony for repairs and i was told they had discontinued production of that particular series and as a result couldnt fix it. in Sept 2010 i bought another sony vaio laptop within 3 weeks it generated a fault took it back to John lewis as it was still under warranty they fixed it and less than three months down the line the battery got bad again. Now i have 2 sony vaio laptops at home both not working. Pleaseeeeee stay clear from Sony Vaio.

I purchased a Sony VAIO VGN-AR41M 17 inch laptop in July 2007 at a cost of around £1000.00. Thought this would serve me for a long number of years like my old Dell had or my even older Toshiba. I should be so lucky!!

In August 2009 I had a single vertical line appear which after some investigation I tied down to a hardware fault. The warranty of course had, surprise, surprise expired one month earlier and John Lewis, from whom I purchased the machine referred the failure to Sony. They quoted £600.00 for the repair.

A number of emails to Sony resulted in them recommending I bundle everything up, send to them, they would investigate, at a cost, and advise me of the options available. Subsequently I did nothing, not knowing exactly how much it would cost, resulting in my single vertical line reproducing until I now have, unlucky for some, 13 of various colours.

There were reports of overheating in certain Sony models in 2008 causing a major recall and that graphics card manufacturer nVidia, whose chipset is featured in my machine were greatly concerned. A similar recall occurred in June 2010 with an overheating problem affecting more than half a million of its F and C series laptops sold since the start of 2010.

I will eventually be forced to either send to Sony for repair, carry out the repair myself, or scrap and buy a new Dell. This may end up a combination of the latter two options but will certainly not be the first since Sony will not get any more of my hard earned cash as long as I can avoid it.

I incidentally have another Sony VAIO purchased for my wife for her Christmas in 2008, mistake, and two Sony Bravia televisions which will never be replaced by another Sony.

So for all of you out there who have listened to my story and have similar kit, may your X-black LCD with Double Lamp Technology and nVidia chipset continue to shine brightly!!!