Sony VAIO PCG-FXA32 Notebook (900-MHz Duron, 128 MB RAM, 15 GB hard drive)

Product Description

The VAIO all-in-one FX Series notebooks provide everything you need in a notebook without any of those excess connections, making travel easy and convenient! Bring the ultimate power, performance and network connectivity of a Sony VAIO into your itinerary with Sony's popular FX Series notebooks. The VAIO all-in-one solution is the true desktop replacement for anyone. The FX Series offers lightning-fast processors, roomy hard drives, and plenty of RAM! And, you can even make your own movies. The i.LINK interface lets you download images from compatible Sony camcorders or cameras for extra fun on the road. The VAIO all-in-one FX Series provides everything you need in a notebook, making your life easy and convenient whether you're on the road or at home.

Amazon.com Product Description

The Sony Vaio PCG-FXA32 is a basic laptop for general-purpose use. Its price is lower than average for notebooks as a whole. Additionally, the system weighs 7.1 pounds and has a 900 MHz AMD Duron processor, 128 MB of RAM (expandable to 512 MB), a 15 GB hard disk, a DVD-ROM drive, 56K modem, and 10/100 Mbps Ethernet network card. Its screen is a 15-inch, active-matrix display with 1,024 x 768 resolution. Windows XP Home Edition comes installed.

Customer Reviews:

A great inexpensive notebook.......2003-10-28

I purchased my PCG-FXA32 nearly two years ago, when they were offering the free 256MB RAM upgrade. It's served me well. It does not feel sluggish compared to other notebooks running WinXP. The screen is crisp and clear -- there aren't many notebooks at this price with a 15" screen. Mine has been rock-solid, never crashing unless I've put it to sleep with my wi-fi pc card installed (hibernate works fine.)

Sony would like to sell this model as a video editing platform (it does include a FireWire port.) Their software works ok, but with only 15GB of hard drive space, an upgrade there is in order unless you're just making short videos for the web or something.

Overall, a good notebook, and a great value.

Don't waste your money.......2003-10-17

Battery life: 30 minutes doing nothing
Tech support says this is normal!
What?
YES, they say this is normal. Now I Know they have no sense.
What can you possibly acomplish in 30 minutes on a laptop, assuming you are doing something productive. Forget about using this laptop in the airport.
The poorest, most sorry, stupid, neanderthal tech support on the planet.
Opposite of a Toyota product, wish they made a laptop.

FXA32>>NOT TO BAD.......2002-01-21

I purchased this Laptop in December, I have had a couple before this and I decided to go with a Sony. The computer is pretty good, there is 2 things that I have problems with....

1. The processor does not know how fast it is...It ranges between 550 to 900mhz.

2. The mouse like to stall for a second or two..which is kinda annoying...

other than that this computer is not that bad...I am goin to try an Athlon or Pentium 3...in a Sony brand...but like I said before...this does the job O.K.

VAIO are not good........2002-01-15

I live in Japan and I decided to buy a Japanese computer. I went to the local computer store and bought a VAIO notebook. The first night I got it I had problems. It froze often. I really didnt think much of it. It also would say "not enough memory....." I bought more memory and it said the same thing. I would have to turn it off then back on. Sometimes it wont turn off. Then, files started to disapear until it could even boot up. I sent it off to sony to get fixed, but when it came back it was still messed up.

My friend in college told me never buy a Sony computer I should have listened. He had a Sony and had problems with it. Sonys are eye candy for PCs. Buy an America comptuer.

Good Product but Extremely Poor Technical Support.......2001-12-31

I bought an FXA-32 laptop for home use, and it is a very good product given the price. It comes with an impressive 15" display and graphics are fantastic. The speed of FXA-32 is O.K. But to my suprise, it runs much faster after I added in an extra 128MB RAM (total 256MB). Kinston is running a promotion for Sony and I got the extra 128MB almost free (just pay $9 shipping cost). The machine is very reliable, and I don't see any reason to buy a desk top computer for home use.

However, the customer service of Sony on FXA-32 is the worst I have ever seen (not even remotely close to Dell). They do not return your email!!! I tried more than 10 times to reach them by phone, even at odd hours. But not a single time that I can get through. Circuit City alwayse refers the problem to Sony, but that is a black hole after many tries.

Here is a list of things I found on my machine:
(1) It needs to download various updates from Sony Web site and install them one by one (an hour job with a good IP connection).
(2) Volume control can only be set through control penal.
(3) Brightness control is not found and disabled from keyboard.
(4) System reading on CPU speed is buggy. I got a wide range of readings from 564MHz to 900 MHz.
(5) The manual is poorly written and not helpful.
(6) On my machine, Microsoft Word is not properly installed, missing wordret.ini. But without support, there is no way to fix it.

These are all minor problems if there is proper technical support. But overall, it is a very good machine and I give it a 4 star.

Electronics:

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Electronics