Well about 3 months ago I purchased two Vaio's ( one for me and one for our Finance Director ).
Both were the PCG-GRX316MP model ( i.e. the one with the 16.1" screen ) and I have to say that so far I've been very happy with the performance of both. Indeed from a systems development point of view it's been ideal, e.g. fast, reliable, high-res, etc.
That said, it pays to remember that whilst the screen is indeed 16.1"'s ( and that's big ! ) its native pixel dimension is high ( i.e. I run mine at 1600 x 1200 ) which is a setting which gives you lots of screen 'acreage' but results in small fonts ( i.e. not good for those who are visually challenged ) - and you also need to remember that with a laptop it's very hard to make it work at settings it was not designed for, e.g. 1024 x 768 on mine looks AWFUL, because the characters and borders around things end up looking all furry where the graphics card tries to stretch the fonts to fit the non-standard resolution which has been applied.
For the record my laptop has no IR Port, and no serial port, but it does have three USB ports, and the battery life for such a large beast is about 150 minutes - and the keyboard is the nicest I think I've ever found on a laptop .
So would I buy Sony again ?
The answer is a resounding YES ( and indeed many of our pilots also have purchased Sony's of various models and all seem very happy with them ).
Nb. I brought the two mentioned above from the Dixons airside at LGW's (North Terminal) - and, from memory, I think the company ended up paying about £1348 for each unit, i.e. that's the so called 'Tax Free' price, albeit that they give you a receipt with a VAT number on it
and VAT applied ! - which the company of course can then claim back - so veritably 17.5% 'Tax free' + 17.5% VAT reclaim = 35% reduction w.r.t the RRP - nice one !
