Tuesday, November 8, 2005
Lifelong Sony Boycott Going Strong
I remain frosty, and true... My lifelong boycott of Sony Products is still going strong. This obviously predates the Sony rootkit fiasco, though rootkit reaffirms my distrust for all things Sony.
Aside from 3rd party Playstation and Playstation 2 software (of which, Sony gets only a modest cut, as they start competing with Microsoft in earnest), I haven't willingly bought anything with a Sony decal on it EVER IN MY LIFE, with the exception of two PS2 titles developed by Sony 2nd parties and published by SCEA (Primal for $11, Ico for $15, and I'll get Shadow of the Colossus when it's cheaper) and 3 PSX titles (Tomba, Tobal no. 1, and Syphon Filter). I have no CDs published by a Sony studio. I have very few movies produced or published by a Sony studio. I once bought an off-lease 17" CRT monitor for pretty cheap, and it just happened to be a Sony (and still works, though is slow to power up). I got Sony brand speakers for my roommate Crizl, but it's technically her purchase (and they were manufactured by Samhongsa, not Sony).
To date, my family, coworkers and friends have owned many Sony products, all of which performed marginal-to-poor and many failed shortly after the warranted period, with one notable exception... Crizl's voodoo influence over Sony products is staggering. She owns one of only two, out of literal hundreds confirmed defective by friends, known working SCPH-30000 PS2s (the original North American release), she had a Discman that survived 5+ years of near-continuous use, and her PSX still works (though, is retired). Crizl aside, everyone I know, who has had Sony products, have had nothing but trouble (mostly for me, because I have to fix them):
4 Sony Vaio workstations... All died, due to motherboard failure (1 capacitor explosion that nearly started a fire, 1 corrupted BIOS that can't be flashed and has no recovery ROM, and 2 just won't power up). Even when they still worked, they performed piss-poor. The Windows image on the installation CDs were corrupted, as were most of the hardware drivers. All of the Sony apps (which I couldn't uninstall without it pulling drivers) were garbage. Even after reformatting and installing MD5 verified copies of Win2k from two official licensed Microsoft published CDs, half of the devices had no drivers available from Sony, and it still performed poorly compared to other systems in its class with the same CPU. Vaio PC customer service were retarded, and of absolutely no help.
EVERY SCPH-30000 PS2, save two. Of all my friends and colleagues, several of which are Sony retailers, only two still have working SCPH-30000 PS2s. One is alive due to Crizl's supernatural ability. The other has only been used a few times, and spends the rest of the time in a dry and cool basement. Otherwise, we can confirm over 300 dead or malfunctioning SCPH-30000 units due to various reasons (most stemming from CD motor, drive bay motor or misaligned laser).
2 SCPH-70001 (slim) PS2s... Steffannee's takes forever to boot many titles. Some titles won't boot at all. Alex's died mysteriously, but was replaced with a unit featuring a newer GH-032 motor.
1 Sony Vaio laptop... The Pentium M permanently seized, due to system constantly overheating with normal use. Screen had dead pixels less than 4 months after purchase. The DV port worked only once.
1 Sony Handycam... Servo motors for optics died. There is no manual focus, so everything was out of focus. The recharger base needed to be replaced less than 6 months after purchase, as the original transformer started leaking electrolyte. Tape bay no longer ejects.
1 Sony CCD Camcorder... Simply stopped working. Screen powers on, but nothing else responds. Tape bay also doesn't eject.
6 various Sony TVs... 4 tuners stopped working within a year of purchase. 1 electron gun died 2 years after purchase. All (except the one that died), formed severely warped aperture grilles after 18 months, which I couldn't fix, even using the magnet/drill degaussing trick.
2 Sony Playstation Portables... Two of the kids at work got PSP's, and both had to replace them. Both had dead pixels, and one wouldn't even turn on, right out of the box. One of the replacements' battery doesn't seem to keep a charge for very long. The second works, for now, though has an intermittent sticky face-button.
In short, I say "forget you, Sony!" If I can help it, I'll never ever knowingly buy a Sony branded product unless it's either below-cost closeout priced or the rare software title. If we're getting a PS3, Crizl's getting it - not me.
Aside from 3rd party Playstation and Playstation 2 software (of which, Sony gets only a modest cut, as they start competing with Microsoft in earnest), I haven't willingly bought anything with a Sony decal on it EVER IN MY LIFE, with the exception of two PS2 titles developed by Sony 2nd parties and published by SCEA (Primal for $11, Ico for $15, and I'll get Shadow of the Colossus when it's cheaper) and 3 PSX titles (Tomba, Tobal no. 1, and Syphon Filter). I have no CDs published by a Sony studio. I have very few movies produced or published by a Sony studio. I once bought an off-lease 17" CRT monitor for pretty cheap, and it just happened to be a Sony (and still works, though is slow to power up). I got Sony brand speakers for my roommate Crizl, but it's technically her purchase (and they were manufactured by Samhongsa, not Sony).
To date, my family, coworkers and friends have owned many Sony products, all of which performed marginal-to-poor and many failed shortly after the warranted period, with one notable exception... Crizl's voodoo influence over Sony products is staggering. She owns one of only two, out of literal hundreds confirmed defective by friends, known working SCPH-30000 PS2s (the original North American release), she had a Discman that survived 5+ years of near-continuous use, and her PSX still works (though, is retired). Crizl aside, everyone I know, who has had Sony products, have had nothing but trouble (mostly for me, because I have to fix them):4 Sony Vaio workstations... All died, due to motherboard failure (1 capacitor explosion that nearly started a fire, 1 corrupted BIOS that can't be flashed and has no recovery ROM, and 2 just won't power up). Even when they still worked, they performed piss-poor. The Windows image on the installation CDs were corrupted, as were most of the hardware drivers. All of the Sony apps (which I couldn't uninstall without it pulling drivers) were garbage. Even after reformatting and installing MD5 verified copies of Win2k from two official licensed Microsoft published CDs, half of the devices had no drivers available from Sony, and it still performed poorly compared to other systems in its class with the same CPU. Vaio PC customer service were retarded, and of absolutely no help.
EVERY SCPH-30000 PS2, save two. Of all my friends and colleagues, several of which are Sony retailers, only two still have working SCPH-30000 PS2s. One is alive due to Crizl's supernatural ability. The other has only been used a few times, and spends the rest of the time in a dry and cool basement. Otherwise, we can confirm over 300 dead or malfunctioning SCPH-30000 units due to various reasons (most stemming from CD motor, drive bay motor or misaligned laser).
2 SCPH-70001 (slim) PS2s... Steffannee's takes forever to boot many titles. Some titles won't boot at all. Alex's died mysteriously, but was replaced with a unit featuring a newer GH-032 motor.
1 Sony Vaio laptop... The Pentium M permanently seized, due to system constantly overheating with normal use. Screen had dead pixels less than 4 months after purchase. The DV port worked only once.
1 Sony Handycam... Servo motors for optics died. There is no manual focus, so everything was out of focus. The recharger base needed to be replaced less than 6 months after purchase, as the original transformer started leaking electrolyte. Tape bay no longer ejects.
1 Sony CCD Camcorder... Simply stopped working. Screen powers on, but nothing else responds. Tape bay also doesn't eject.
6 various Sony TVs... 4 tuners stopped working within a year of purchase. 1 electron gun died 2 years after purchase. All (except the one that died), formed severely warped aperture grilles after 18 months, which I couldn't fix, even using the magnet/drill degaussing trick.
2 Sony Playstation Portables... Two of the kids at work got PSP's, and both had to replace them. Both had dead pixels, and one wouldn't even turn on, right out of the box. One of the replacements' battery doesn't seem to keep a charge for very long. The second works, for now, though has an intermittent sticky face-button.
In short, I say "forget you, Sony!" If I can help it, I'll never ever knowingly buy a Sony branded product unless it's either below-cost closeout priced or the rare software title. If we're getting a PS3, Crizl's getting it - not me.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
