Sony VPCSA3BGX/SI

[irispix]

I bought this laptop for HD and video editing in Premiere Pro CS5 but now I am finding more bad reviews than good and was wondering if I made a bad choice.

I am wondering if anyone of you is familiar with it and can give me some feedback.

Unfortunately, for reasons too long to explain I am locked into buying a Sony laptop so I don't have many choices aside from Vaio.

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[Steve Grisetti]

VAIOs tend to be priced a bit high and they sometimes customize the operating system, which can cause problems.

But I wouldn't sweat the bad reviews. Remember, most of the online reviews you see are from unhappy people. The happy people are generally too busy enjoying their new computers to complain.

So I'd give it a good test drive before I decided whether or not I'd bought the wrong machine. Today's Windows 7 64-bit machines are better than PCs have ever been! Most likely you'll be thrilled with the performance! (It is a fully loaded i7 machine, after all!)

[Chuck Engels]

I think that Gerlinde has a Vaio and seems to like it.
There are people that really don't like them for video work much but they have faithful followers as well. Not my choice of laptop but you might be ok with that. Have you given it a workout yet?

[DonWhitten]

I am currently using a Sony VIO (VPCF1) with the following specs:
Intel Core i7 Q740 1,73GHz
8 gig ram
upgraded the hard drive to a Seagate Momentus XT ST95005620AS - Hybrid hard drive - 500 GB - internal - 2.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 32 MB - ( 4 GB Flash )
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 425M GPU Video RAM: 1GB of dedicated video RAM
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
For video software I am currently using Adobe Premiere Elements 9.0.
I am also using Adobe Design Premium CS 5.5

Not the fastest notebook but it does the job to my satisfaction until I can build a dedicated desktop for video and photography.

[Gerlinde]

I have both, a Vaio desktop and a notebook. They are way out of date.... I bought my desktop in 2004 and the notebook in 2008. I still use both, the notebook mostly for video editing, since the desktop can't handle HD video. But I have Photoshop CS5 installed on my desktop and use it for all my photo work like photo restoration and photo printing.

I have no problems editing my HD video, which consists of tape based footage from a Canon Vixia HV30 and 1280 x720 video from a Panasonic Lumix camera. I use Premiere Elements 10, Avid Studio and Magix MEP 17 pro and have no complains, except maybe rendering could be somewhat faster.

I would buy a Vaio computer again anytime. But as Steve pointed out, Sony customizes the operating system and is not very good with supplying current video and audio drivers. I got rid of the pre-installed system and still have problems to update my video card with the newest driver.