New Sony Netbook Costs a King's Ransom

[HyenaThePirate]

Well... i've been trying to defend Sony lately... but this.. I have no valid justification for.
I mean, you could buy 4 playstation 3's for that price, one for your home, one for your car, one for the office, and one to keep in your backpack in case the Zombpocalpyse happens and you need something to pass the time while locked in your impregnable safe room.

My only guess is that Sony is intentionally trying to wreck the netbook market by exposing how silly it is to buy a netbook when there are fully functional laptops selling for nearly the same price.

Or maybe they are trying to become the "luxury product" manufacturer of the electronic industry... you know, maybe they want to cater to wealthy clientele or something.. become the Ferrari of home electronics.

*quietly slips away while people are distracted with White Knight Chronicle gameplay footage...*

 

[Jumplion]

Okay, I get that it's expensive n' all ($2000 is a ***** after all) but really? How exactly does this have any real place in the news? Does anyone use Netbooks for games, or is it even possible to play games on Netbooks? I'd say "just another anti-Sony thread" though I don't want to start anything.

So, although you don't want to start anything, you're still going to call my integrity into question?

Basically I don't mean any disrespect, though it's annoying to see bad news back to back to back to back (Though, and if I'm allowed to be a fanboy for a sec, even if it's good new with Sony it's still bogged down by everyone). Besides, we're not even the target audience for this and it hardly concerns us at all.

Okay, I get that it's expensive n' all ($2000 is a ***** after all) but really? How exactly does this have any real place in the news? Does anyone use Netbooks for games, or is it even possible to play games on Netbooks? I'd say "just another anti-Sony thread" though I don't want to start anything.

Jumplion, I thought you weren't a fanboy. I mean, news is news, gamers usually have computers, and this is sensational.

Fine, you want me to stop replacing Indigo_Dingo for a sec? Okay then;

"This thing, that I will never buy, is much too damn expensive for something that I will never purchase anyway! What's more, it's a special addition, so the cheaper one is $1000, and that's still expensive even though I will never purchase one and probably never knew existed until this article just poped out (OOC: I know I didn't...)!"

I mean, really what else is there to complain about besides it's expensive-ness? And to my knowledge, Netbooks don't usually play games much less being equipped to play games.

 

[Worsle]

Attn:

"Signature series"

I.E. "This product is for Paris Hilton and other such people."

Ha she probably couldn't lift this thing let alone know how to use it.

They don't need too, it is expensive and made in limited numbers. Overly expensive and limited edition is rich idiot fodder, most things marketed to that market are stupidly expensive and not worth it so why would this be anything different. I also don't think any of us here are part of the target audience either so really we might as well be talking about how silly stuff like this is http://www.slashphone.com/11/6126.html Would you buy this phone? I mean really it is ugly and overly expensive but it is also overly expensive dragging in its own type of consumer.

Also reducing prices is not the only way to deal with a resection or always the best. Increasing prices, cutting production and just targeting the people who would pay that money no matter what can be effective too.

 

[Chaos Marine]

Sony must be trying to take a page from the Apple book of stupidity. Only they don't have legions of hispters idiots who will buy anything with their brand label on it.

 

[Chaos Marine]

And sony wonders why I stopped buying their shit.

Oh wait, they don't, because they're a massive corporation who couldn't care less about me. So whatever

Oh yes, and no other corporation on Earth is the same. They all care for you and give you milk and cookies, while Sony is planning to steal Christmas. That's logical.

nah, I'm j/k.

But yeah, I can see where they're going with this. Consider for a moment, people. Sony wants to make high end products for people who have the money and who want high end electronics. There are alternatives if you don't want it. That's why you can simply choose a cheaper laptop if you want to.

Now, if they were the only laptop makers on the market and forced you to buy this, then that would be different. I mean, what kinda corporation would force all their users to use the same crap and not offer any.... *looks at Windows*

Oh. Nevermind.

Oh don't worry, this is a common mistake. You seem to be mixing up Apple with Microsoft. I guess you've seen Vista and are mixing the two up together. Apple is the one where getting anything to work with it, that's not Apple approved (And that constitutes an awful lot of stuff) to just about every other Windows OS which everything actually does 'just work'.

 

[TxMxRonin]

Sony has joined the league of Apple and Alienware were you're no longer paying for a product you're paying for the name.

 

[Simalacrum]

I hate to sound like a fanboy but Sony is just being stupid with their pricing. THEIR IN A RECESSION!! making things more expensive the exact OPPOSITE thing they should be doing right now!

Even if it is theoretically far more powerful than its competitors, they should have sacrificed that power for the lower price point...

jeez, that company doesn't know how to price things anymore... maybe they thought it was 1 Japanese Yen to the dollar? who knows...

I'm still looking forward to the PSP Go though

 

[randommaster]

Everyone seems up in arms about this, but all I can say is that Sony seems to have lost sight of its larger audience and instead is trying to becaome the new Apple.

 

[Soxafloppin]

I have a strong distaste for all laptops.

 

[Jamash]

I hate to sound like a fanboy but Sony is just being stupid with their pricing. THEIR IN A RECESSION!! making things more expensive the exact OPPOSITE thing they should be doing right now!

Even if it is theoretically far more powerful than its competitors, they should have sacrificed that power for the lower price point...

jeez, that company doesn't know how to price things anymore... maybe they thought it was 1 Japanese Yen to the dollar? who knows...

I'm still looking forward to the PSP Go though

To be fair, these laptops are from the bespoke "Signature" range and partly have their price tag because only a limited number are being made, and because they're aimed a people who aren't affected by the recession, and certainly aren't aimed at the majority of gamers or people who frequent the Escapist.

Complaining about the price of these laptops is like complaining about the price of a Rolls Royce or top of the range Mercedes-Benz...

Yes they're expensive and yes there's a recession on, but the company isn't trying to solicit the custom of average people with this range, it's aimed at the rich who have more money than sense, and with these netbooks, can afford to buy a expensive, substandard netbook which looks good.

Rich people need to browse the internet on the go too, and if Sony want to make expensive, fancy looking netbooks to cater to those people, why shouldn't they?

These netbooks are just Sony's equivalent of these Mercedes-Benz key-rings.

Spoiler

Three thousand and five pounds. ($4957).
"OMG I can buy over 100 key-rings with more functions for that price, or I can afford to lose my keys every day and get new keys cut! Mercedes-Benz need to get their pricing right, don't they know there's a recession on?"

Really people are getting unnecessarily worked up about nothing.

 

[messy]

What the hell is wrong with Sony's marketing department? Do they really think they can turn a profit by selling shiny toys at premium prices in the middle of a bloody recession?

AKA the Apple approach to Macs.

But this is even worse; I think they must thing the letters V A I O are worth even more after appearing in every scene of Quantum of Solace

EDIT; removed the bits that were incorrect/made no sense

 

[CrystalShadow]

Meh. This, to me, just looks like your typically priced sub-notebook.

You know, those really tiny, really expensive things that used to exist before anyone had ever even heard of netbooks?

Then again, who buys a sub-notebook these days? They used to get sold because they were 1/3 the weight of a normal laptop, and had much better battery life.
But the tradeoff was terrible performance, and really bad ergonomics.

The netbook killed the sub-notebook though, so why bother.

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

What about battery life? Pretty sure thats rather important to a number of people.

when looking at a battery life comparison chart i see the best of them gives 9.5 hours of life and then I see that there is also a toughbook being sold that has a 9.5 battery life ... There are laptops with high battery life other than toughbook, I'm just using them as an example.

I don't think this model provides anything really good for the price when you do a price comparison with laptops{the lightest ones, not the heavy ones}

 

[PhoenixFlame]

It's the SSD that is driving this price, as others have mentioned. Solid state drives at anything below 120GB are expensive as it is - for example, seeing as part of my job is dealing with quoting various tech equipment, a Dell Latitude with an SSD in it of any respectable size is over 2k. So a 256GB SSD drive is going to be insanely priced.

This is more of an ultraportable than a Netbook, considering the tech stats, so that's really where all the confusion is coming from. Though to be perfectly honest, I've always felt the Sony markup on most of their products - Bravia TV's, VAIO laptops, and the like - hasn't been worth the price.

Sony needs to do much better at selling "what you're getting" by paying more money, as they've stumbled in doing that with the PS3.

 

[SilentHunter7]

...

God, with SONY's pricing strategy lately, I'm hoping for the companies sake that they DON'T make a Playstation 4.

What? You don't want a console that costs a bajillion dollars and needs fluency in Sanskrit and Sumerian to programme for? Are you insane?

Well that made the PS3 hard to develop for on purpose, so that it's true potential won't be realized until later.

Perhaps they made the new netbook hard to afford, so that you won't be able to buy software for it, and thus wont realize its true potential until several pay checks down the road.

It just makes sense.

 

[Sevre]

Please gif system specs to us tech savvy types so we can shred this to bits?

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Okay, I get that it's expensive n' all ($2000 is a ***** after all) but really? How exactly does this have any real place in the news? Does anyone use Netbooks for games, or is it even possible to play games on Netbooks? I'd say "just another anti-Sony thread" though I don't want to start anything.

Jumplion, I thought you weren't a fanboy. I mean, news is news, gamers usually have computers, and this is sensational.

Fine, you want me to stop replacing Indigo_Dingo for a sec? Okay then;

"This thing, that I will never buy, is much too damn expensive for something that I will never purchase anyway! What's more, it's a special addition, so the cheaper one is $1000, and that's still expensive even though I will never purchase one and probably never knew existed until this article just poped out (OOC: I know I didn't...)!"

I mean, really what else is there to complain about besides it's expensive-ness? And to my knowledge, Netbooks don't usually play games much less being equipped to play games.

Wait, you're purposely replacing him? Has his voodoo magic gotten a hold of you?

Damn... I almost made it to 2000 posts without putting anything into console wars except for the occasional sarcastic remark. DAMNIT!

Let me rephrase Jumplion....

Although I question the market strategy of SONY (which I already have) this is really being blown out of proportion. For example a Ferrari costs a good 350G USED! Yet I hardly see people complaining about that. This is a luxury item folks, a special/collectors edition if you would.