New Sony Netbook Costs a King's Ransom

[Jumplion]

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

Well, somebody has to replace Indigo when he kicks the bucket (don't deny it, he's on ultra-thin ice nowadays) whether we like it or not.

And this guy restates it nicely;

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.

That an previous posts have stated that the SSD is the thing that's driving the price, 256GB apparantly. And it's a special eddition for christ's sake, made in limited numbers, it's for the rich idiots who have money to spend. This is just another thread stating what we all know "OMG SONY STUFF IS EXPENSUVE!@#!@" I do find it funny that regardless of what the topic is, Sony seems to get the most threads here. Hell, there are 3 god-damn sony threads back to back here all running simoltaneously!

 

[Paperplanes79]

I think the whole idea of netbooks are fundamentally flawed.

a computer that has limited capabilities to the point where using the internet is about all its good for? Hmmm sounds like my grandmother's laptop.

So in theory I am paying hundreds of dollars to use inferior technology. When i can access the world wide web from my little baby computer in my pocket.

STUPID.

 

[Jumplion]

Honestly I'm surprised he made it as far as he is right now. I really am astonished.

Though the feel I got from this article was that it would be a common thing, not just a special edition for rich elitists that have three PS3s.

Eh, Nilcypher made a comment in the second paragraph sortof "redeeming" the thing;

To be fair to Sony, that particular model is a special edition, and the regular Vaio P costs a more reasonable, although still not cheap, $1,000.

Though honestly, who reads news posts completely nowadays?

 

[pantsoffdanceoff]

Ha, you can't escape it Pantsoff. It's like a nexus of evil that draws everything towards it.

I feel so.... soiled.
But I guess it was inevitable that I talk about [b/]game[/b] consoles on a [b/]gaming[/b] website, I couldn't hide in the off-topic section forever.

 

[Syphonz]

So Sony strategy caters to wealthy people who have the money to buy this type of thing and say "I have something that you cannot afford, nor buy if you had the money because there's none left". So what?

Sony is not going to apologize and change prices for the average working guy when he's not the one targeted for this product.

It's like if Apple makes a limited amount of shiny black Ipods (lets pretend if they didn't exist for a moment)and sells them for 1400 bucks a peice. It does nothing different than other Ipods, but its shiny black and only 200 of them are being made. Wealthy people love this shit and buy all of them within the minute they're up for sale. Why? Its just an over priced Ipod? Wrong, its an Ipod YOU cannot afford and only 199 other people across the world can say they have it. Very egotiscal yes, but marketable to those who desire that kind of distinction.

Thats Sony's crowd. Live with it and don't *****.

 

[sorry user name taken.]

Guh?

2000 dollars for that?

is that expensive? o.o

 

[Worsle]

So Sony strategy caters to wealthy people who have the money to buy this type of thing and say "I have something that you cannot afford, nor buy if you had the money because there's none left". So what?

Sony is not going to apologize and change prices for the average working guy when he's not the one targeted for this product.

It's like if Apple makes a limited amount of shiny black Ipods (lets pretend if they didn't exist for a moment)and sells them for 1400 bucks a peice. It does nothing different than other Ipods, but its shiny black and only 200 of them are being made. Wealthy people love this shit and buy all of them within the minute they're up for sale. Why? Its just an over priced Ipod? Wrong, its an Ipod YOU cannot afford and only 199 other people across the world can say they have it. Very egotiscal yes, but marketable to those who desire that kind of distinction.

Thats Sony's crowd. Live with it and don't *****.

You forgot one other thing it is a fairly resection proof crowd too. Oh sure rich people are loosing a lot of money in the current market but there is still enough of them with more than enough money to blow and when you are making things in a small quantity you only need a few of these people to buy them. Really it is not a bad tactic if you can pull it off, not being one of those overly rich people I don't know or really care if they are.

 

[Clashero]

$1000 can get you an HP laptop with a 17" screen, a core 2 duo 2,13 Ghz processor, 4gb of RAM, and an NVidia GeForce 9600 GT (that's right, not GT M, in which M stands for "mobile and crappy". Just GT, like the retail one).
I'm not paying $2000 for that.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

What in heaven's name is the point of that? If you're spending two thousand dollars on a laptop, it's not going to be a lightweight netbook.

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?

The simple answer is... Yes.

 

[AceDiamond]

To put some things into perspective because I spent some time doing research, Netbooks typically cost $400. That means even the $1000 Vaio Netbook is stupidly overpriced. But wait, it has a Solid State Hard Drive! Wave of the future technology that certainly must be worth the price!

Yeah, no. No it isn't.

See a Netbook is designed to surf the internet, check email, do word processing, and so on. Low-intensity stuff. You are not going to be installing 3D rendering programs, movie producing software, the latest Call of Duty game, or whatever onto it. Hence no need for a large hard drive. Now granted, Solid State Drives are perfect for notebooks in theory because of the performance increase and the fact you don't need high disk space capacity for the netbook. Yet at the same time you don't need 256 or even 128 gigs of space on a Netbook. I see no reason to unless you're on a journey to catalog all the music of the world.

Furthermore, Solid State technology is still expensive right now, to the point that half the people who would buy a Netbook with Solid State technology would only do so if the price dropped considerably (source: https://mr.pricegrabber.com/Netbook_Trends_and_SolidState_Technology_January_2009_CBR.pdf ). Do note my source is from January. I can only imagine if those thoughts have changed for the 'worse' in the intervening time. Simply put, you don't need a solid state drive that big, much less a solid state drive right now. Would it be nice? yeah. But I have to call in the pricing point given how there's no need to drop that much money on a netbook that costs more than my current computer (at least the special edition would)

I also have to question Sony's reliability when it comes to computers. Now maybe things have changed but my friend's Vaio laptop had severe problems with its keyboard and when she sent it in for repairs they broke it, cited "irreperable water damage", sent it back, and tried to get her to pay for the service and shipping costs. And I haven't heard anybody ever speak good of a Sony computer, at least among the people I know (who are not strictly speaking Anti-Sony people anyway)

Now, as to why this is news, well I have to be honest, I agree with Jumplion that I don't see why this is here. The only thing I can think of is because it shows a dangerous and confusing precedent that Sony has embarked on as a business model.

 

[murphy7801]

sony's pockets must be running shallow

 

[captain awesome 12]

Probably has a Blu Ray player built into it... XD

 

[CyberAkuma]

SONY gets a new rectum ripped for selling $2000 laptops?
Apple has been doing that for YEARS.
How that any different?

(yes, MacBook Pros cost $+2000 in Europe)

SONY and Apple are synonymous with underpowered, underutilized and overpriced.
Big whopeedy woo.
The fact that SONY (and Apple) try to convince people to buy their emarrasingly overpriced stuff is hardly news.

EDIT: SONY has also a new line of carbon-fiber laptop on their homepage.
Starting price: $4349.99 and probably 40% more expensive in Europe.

 

[Jumplion]

Now, as to why this is news, well I have to be honest, I agree with Jumplion that I don't see why this is here. The only thing I can think of is because it shows a dangerous and confusing precedent that Sony has embarked on as a business model.

Oy vey, you saved your self there, I was about to go all gung-ho on your ass (don't blame me, I get paied 50 cents per post...)

 

[similar.squirrel]

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You could build a nice gaming rig for that amount of money. Anybody who buys this thing is a tit.

 

[Antonis427]

"I can't afford to buy a bit of kit that isn't intended for me anyway so I'll just shit on Sony and ***** some more".

BTW VAIOs are the sturdiest, most well-built PCs I have ever used and what I use to shut those stupid Mac fanbois up when they claim that "PCs are ugly and shoddily built". And they always shut up.