Sony Crap - surfaces wearing in new lappy

Yea sony notebooks are not good quality. If it really bothers you, maybe you could buy some spray paint? Im not sure if you would want to do that.

That sucks. I have a little wear to the right of my mouse pad, on my Dell I9300. The paint is still there. It just looks dull.

My S360's palmrest looks as good as the day I bought it. A few of the keys are smoothing out from heavy use but the paint looks fresh.

damn i feel for you MarkAM. i have the same problem with my a690(bought 7 months ago). when i realized that some of the silver finish was wearing off on the right side of the touchpad, i emailed sony support to find out what i can do about it. i also complained about how crappy sonicstage was too. i was disappointed when i got this reply from them:

Thank you for contacting Sony Online Support.

We regret to learn the difficulties you are experiencing. This issue can occur due to a chemical excreted in the perspiration of certain people. Depending on the usage of individuals, the silver finish may fade quicker for some people than others. In addition, using cleaning solvents on the keyboard will also attribute to this issue.

We have searched our support knowledgebase and found the following article that should assist you to troubleshoot when noise occurs when WAV files are played in the SonicStage software. Please click the URL link
below to review the information:

http://www.iq.sony.com/srvs/autoresponse.asp?id=200285

We hope this information has been helpful to you. If you need further assistance, do not hesitate to reply to this message with any additional details you require.

TIP: If you want a more interactive support experience you may want to try our LiveAssist Chat support available at:
http://www.iq.sony.com/srvs/conversation/liveassist.asp

Thank You,

Your Sony Email Response Team

man, they couldnt even tell me if there was some way to order another silver cover for it. thanks for nothing sony support.

I bought my A690 in April and have the same problem with the gray finish wearing off. The only difference is that in my case it wore off on the edges, particularly on the right-hand edge next to the DVD drive. Mind you, that story about this being caused by using solvents or due to perspiration is nothing short of nonsensical. I never used anything except a clean water-damp cloth to remove the dust. The finist started wearing off as early as three or four months ago and the machine looks quite shabby now. But it's not the biggest problem - the DVD drive has been causing me serious trouble lately, as burning results in almost nothing but coasters. But on the plus side, the feel and the design of the computer are great and the screan is simply magnificent. However, I'm no longer sure that the advantages outweigh these and some other silly shortcomings. For example, from time to time there is some strange noise (someting like "sht-sht") that seems to be coming from or neer the speakers area. The strangest thing is that it keeps moving from left to right and its intensity changes. Sometimes it even disappears but comes back after a couple of days. I'm pretty sure it happens both when the computer is connected to the entertainment dock and when disconnected from it. Luckily, this does not seem to affect the performance of the machine in any visible way. Naturally, I never considered mentioning this to Sony's e-support as they never provided me with any sensible advice/solution.

Anyone with a similar issue

Cheers.

I've just had my DVD drive replaced by a new one (apparently, the old one was second and the new one is third generation optical device, which should mean improved performance). Let's just hope it will be more reliable than its predecessor. Thank goodness for the warranty!

Had my A690 for at least 7 months or so also, same thing, silver wearing off. Its a shame, such a beautiful machine going south. Can't wait for intel based powebooks, think that will be my next one, running vista of course

Anyways, is anyone brave enough to open up the A690, remove the silver casing around the keyboard and try a color change? I think if one took the time, sanded good first, put down automotive quality paint with some heavy coats of clear, it may look better and last longer? I'd love to have mine in a metalic blue of some shade (blue being my favorite color). Maybe I'll give it a go once the warrenty is up.

Other than that though, the A690 is the best laptop I've ever owned, my neighbors G4 powerbook (over a year old) does not have any fading on any surface, but his screen has issues, his ethernet port died, and he only has 1 mouse button .

Lets see what happens once warrenty is up and people start getting creative!

Robert