For those of you that have purchased or are considering purchasing a Sony TR notebook, please share the deals you’re finding to help out fellow forum members.
It’s not that bad if you can live with 100Mhz less speed (but slightly better battery life as a result of that), 30GB drive and the fact that it’s refurbished.
wow i think thats a DEAL and a half. too bad i paid $2499 for a new one.
i did however but it on my amex costco card which has internet price matching. i got amex to give me $100 back so in essence i paid $2399. for the tr2ap3
The only real benefit is getting a model that you can’t get here in the states. Since the TR is sold in the US with Bluetooth being the only real notable omission, then it’s really hard to justify the Japanese model. If you are bilingual and used to a Japanese keyboard, then the Japanese model may be handy if you need to type in Japanese. That said, it’s only “easier” with the Japanese layout as you can do pretty much everything with an English layout keyboard using IME.
The price premium for the Bluetooth simply isn’t worth it.
Places like Dynamism, iCube, Kemplar are good for products that won’t be sold in the US. Also, you also have to be prepared to be without your system if something happens to it. Most of these companies can help facilitate repairs but you will have to send the units back to Japan in all cases.
If the price difference was more minimal (like $100-200) then I would chance getting the Japanese model (which I’ve done before on another product). However, $700 is a lot of money and can buy you a roundtrip ticket to Japan or a lot of Sony accessories (like a USB Bluetooth adapter, an enhanced battery, a case, and $250 of cash in your pocket).
Normally I’d shy away from it due to in-country support problems, but when you consider Sony’s pathetic customer support record, dealing with store tech support couldn’t possibly be any worse. Saving the $700 would be the biggest factor to recommend the US version.
Right before Christmas Best Buy.com had the TR2/A for $2,199 with a $200 Centrino Mail in Rebate.
I ordered the last one they had…after three days they canceled my order without reason then pulled it from their site.
I went to CompUSA who agreed to price match it (their price was $2,299) and price match the $200 rebate. They also gave me a $100 CompUSA gift card because that was the weekend special…all notebooks $699 and up got a free $100 gift card.
Sonystyle.com is still giving their $100 E-Coupon and the TR2/A is $2,199.
I suggest trying to get a Sony Credit Card. I charged the Vaio on it and got 8,800 Sony Points (1 point per $ plus 3 points extra per Sony purchase) and a Sony Theaters combo pack (2 Unrestricted Movies, 2 Small sodas, and 1 Medium Popcorn) is 1,500 points.
I was able to redeem 5 combo packs. The tickets alone ($17) would have cost around $85 and I get all that popcorn and soda also!
You guys would probably hate me for the fact that I picked up my TR1AP for $816 from my work. :wink:
(I work at a Micro Center. Reason it was so cheap was because it had been sitting in the store long enough to get discontinued and heavily discounted. I lucked out. )
Technoworld.com have the tr1mp for £1594 inc vat.
£1593 from simply a bargain.
Check out www. dealtime.co.uk they will give you the best prices.
I know I’ve posted this already in the ‘how much did your TR cost?’ thread, but I think it bears repeating here…
I got my refurbished (not like I can tell; it came with stickers and software just like a new laptop) TR2AP3 (decided it was slightly better than the TR3AP2) for $2049 from clearanceclub.com. They sent it to me next day air and didn’t charge me the $10 extra it took to get it there before 10:30am. They’re now selling the TR1 for 1649, I think. I was nervous about dealing with some random online company, but they were pretty nice. And now…now I have my pretty pretty toy. I’m not sure if they ship international, but it might be worth checking out as it seems that laptops are waaay more expensive abroad than here.
You know it constantly baffles me why peeple are so hot on the TR2 and TR3’s when there isn’t that much difference between them and the TR1 (and the TR5 isn’t that far away either!).
As far as i am concerned this makes the TR1’s great buying because everyone wants a TR2 or 3. In Oz we got the non-bluetooth TR1, TR2 and TR3 for $4300 AU. Obviously this made it the total premium notebook as it was the second dearest in the whole Sony range here. Busness men who cold lease one or get it as a tax writeoff were about the only ones that could afford them. Now I can land a TR1 from Japan (with Bluetooth) for so cheap it’s not funny and yet people snub it. They want a TR2 or 3. My wife takes her TR1 to Uni and she must get 5 enquirys a day about it because it’s small, light, fast, cool looking and spec’d up. She of course doesn’t actually know what it is so she can’t answer their questions. The only drama is the povo Uni students can’t afford one when they go into the store and say “hey i saw this cool Vaio called a TR how much is it?” - “That’ll be $4300 thanks.”
[quote author=“japaneseimportscomau”]You know it constantly baffles me why peeple are so hot on the TR2 and TR3’s when there isn’t that much difference between them and the TR1 (and the TR5 isn’t that far away either!).
As far as i am concerned this makes the TR1’s great buying because everyone wants a TR2 or 3. In Oz we got the non-bluetooth TR1, TR2 and TR3 for $4300 AU. Obviously this made it the total premium notebook as it was the second dearest in the whole Sony range here. Busness men who cold lease one or get it as a tax writeoff were about the only ones that could afford them. Now I can land a TR1 from Japan (with Bluetooth) for so cheap it’s not funny and yet people snub it. They want a TR2 or 3. My wife takes her TR1 to Uni and she must get 5 enquirys a day about it because it’s small, light, fast, cool looking and spec’d up. She of course doesn’t actually know what it is so she can’t answer their questions. The only drama is the povo Uni students can’t afford one when they go into the store and say “hey i saw this cool Vaio called a TR how much is it?” - “That’ll be $4300 thanks.”
It’s like this with all premium products. Those who can afford the price tag will not want ‘last years’ model, even if the change is very slight. If you look at high end cars, Mercedes S, BMW 7, etc, the release of the new body styles kills the resale value of the older ones.
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