I spent a year researching the laptops before I bought the XPS m170. After my first dell, I was not trusting any company at face value. I had to touch the laptop, feel how much heat it generated, and especially the quality of the case. I wasnt going to stand for some lame creaky flimsy case like the Inspirion 8200 I had. It was so bad, that some motherboard posts snapped off, and I was always doing soldering work on it. Then theres the freakin video card that keeps overheating, and for some reason the Geforce 4 go 64 is still commanding a high price.
I contemplated the Vaio A600 series for a while and almost bought one, but it seemed that over time, I got the impression from users of the sony, that there was a high unreliability rate, and very poor service when something did go wrong. Sometimes worst than Dell, if thats possible. But most important, if you just keep pricing it, you will see that they charge you upwards of 50% to 100% markup on any items to add into the laptop. Memory was ridiculous, and hard disks even worse. I have to say, that Dell has reconvinced me with their new XPS line, and the 9300 was just as good. More important was the new case quality. You could actually use the laptop as a laptop, and not be afraid to look at it directly without having to call support.
