Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony VAIO FW31E 16.4-inch Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2Ghz, 4GB RAM, 400GB HDD, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470, Vista Home Premium)

Having heard so much about Sony VAIOs, I decided to purchase this model. The laptop started off great, but after six months of moderate use (internet surfing and word processing) it suffered from the following problems:

- Stuck keys, meaning you have to press down really hard for the character to register on-screen. Not good when you're trying to type something quickly.

- The laptop would no longer charge to the battery's full capacity. It would charge the battery up to 80% and then cease charging.

- The casing near the mouse pad would make worrying creaking sounds whenever the slightest bit of pressure (i.e. my wrists!) was applied. Also, the casing around the LCD screen started to creak as well.

- The mouse pad itself would work intermittently. Sometimes you would run your fingertip across it and nothing would register on-screen or the cursor would move very very slowly as if its jammed. Very annoying.

I will admit that the laptop looks really sexy and the screen quality is amazing. However, I am in agreement with some of the other reviewers that the build quality is not good. I am returning mine and switching to another brand.

The screen is great but the silver paint is rubbing off one of the clickers after barely 6 months use - I'm not even a heavy user, I only really use it at the weekends.

Compained to Sony and they are looking into it as they dont want to replace the button as it amy be a design flaw and the paint would rub off the new clicker when they send it back.

They admit that this has happened to some of their other models also.

I was quite wiery when purchasing the Sony Vaio fw31e having read a number of bad reviews online about it. But I must admit a month on after buying it, I love it to bits! It runs smoothly, its very quiet and looks lovely. It has a great 16.4 inch screen and the keyboard and touch pad are a pleasure to use. Its perfect for surfing the internet, watching films, editing and for lower-end gaming. I've encountered very few problems so far with the laptop apart from an initial problem with the optical-drive, which Sony fixed free of charge in under 4 days.

The only problems I'd have with the laptop is the poor battery life...lasting only about 2 hours or so, which can be quite annoying when in college or travelling. Another problem is the amount of unnessary software that comes with it, which is a bit of a time eater to uninstall. I would also advise to get Windows 7 when its released to make the laptop perform better because vista can slow it down a bit regardless of the 4GBs of RAM!

Overall, I'd definitely recommend getting this laptop if you want a stylish, well spec'd laptop.

Amazon has been sending me these emails post-purchase, including this invitation to review the product. Well, the product never arrived so how can I review it? Granted, the seller was a third party and not Amazon, but he is a partner of Amazon's and Amazon should at least tell me why this seller has been so naughty! It has been a complete waste of time dealing with Amazon recently. I am not happy

After seeing a few mixed reviews on Amazon I felt I had to add a review of my own. Generally when you're spending in a certain price range you're generally going to get a similar spec.. yes Sony's are at the top end compared to others but there's a reason... the majority of other brands are very plastic wth poor build quality and materials, plus the keyboard ergonomics are poor. This piece of kit is brilliant, solid, with a very slick keyboard, amazing screen and superb speakers - I would recommend it 100%. I've never considered Sony for some unknown reason but I'm glad I did and will probably be a loyal customer for many years to come.