The Voorstrandt Restaurant in Paternoster on the South African Cape west coast is the perfect place to enjoy lunch, dinner or a drink while looking out over the beach and sea. Be warned though that they are very busy so if you’re going to be in the area and want to eat there, it’s best to call and make a reservation to avoid disappointment.
As mentioned in my previous post I contacted Sony asking about a simple memory upgrade voiding the warranty. Here’s what I said to them.
I purchased a Vaio VGN-NW23GE notebook from the Somerset Mall branch of Dion Wired today and asked that an additional 2GB of RAM be added to the standard 2GB. I was told that this could not be done for Sony Vaio machines without invalidating the warranty, and was given a name and number of someone at Rectron that would be able to arrange the upgrade for me. I thought this a little strange and on getting home and starting the machine I noted that the hardware manual contains a section explaining how to add and remove memory. As this procedure is explained in the user manual it seems unlikely that doing so would void the warranty. You may wish to look into the reason for your retailers having this seemingly incorrect information. I would be most interested to receive feedback on what you find out.
To their credit they replied with the following.
Dear Steve
Thank you for contacting SONY South Africa. I am happy to assist you with the memory upgrade query. When upgrading any of VAIO electrical components it is highly advisable to send in the machine to the authorized service center, this ensures that the upgrade performed is according to the service guide precaution and standards.
The procedures described in the Adding and Removing of memory modules under the hardware user guide, assume familiarity with the general terminology associated with computers and with the safety practice and regulatory compliance requirements for using and modifying of electronic equipment. SONY does not
Kind Regards
Your Sony customer care Team
Unfortunately the response has been truncated, probably by a web based contact system (I had submitted my question via a contact form on their web site). It seems that the act of upgrading the memory alone will not void the warranty but that Sony may refuse to honour the warranty if it is obvious that failure is due to incorrect memory being installed or that damage was caused by the person installing the memory. Dion Wired have probably chosen not to allow their staff to do any work on Sony products to prevent any warranty claim issues from arising as their in-store technical facilities are must not be Sony authorised service centres.
Despite my statement that I would think twice before shopping at Dion Wired again, yesterday saw me there again making a fairly large purchase. As you’ve probably guessed from the title and image, I’ve finally succumbed and bought myself a laptop. I got a fairly well specified, fast but not super fast Sony Vaio VGN-NW23GE in black, as pictured.
I don’t intend using this as a development machine and will be using it for downloading and processing photographs when I’m away from my desktop machine and for giving me the ability to access the internet when away from home or the office. It will also be great to have access to Google and IMDB while watching movies and TV shows to answer those weird questions that always come to mind. It will also allow me to attend photography workshops; something the lack of a laptop precluded before.
Unlike my previous experience I received great service from Keanon (hope I’m spelling it right) at the Somerset Mall branch, who gave me good advice that allowed me to save R2,000 by buying a slightly lower specified machine than the one I first considered. He also threw in a R300 laptop bag as a freebie.
One curious thing though is what happened when I asked if they could upgrade the machine by adding an additional 2GB of RAM to double the memory. I was originally told this would be no problem. However, after checking with someone, presumably the techies that do upgrades and repairs, Keanon said they couldn’t do it. Seemingly they can for any laptop other than Sony ones, where doing so would void the warranty. Considering that memory upgrades are a common practice and that the hardware user manual contains a section explaining how to add and remove memory, I fail to see how their doing so would invalidate the warranty. Anyway, Keanon gave me the name and number of someone at distributors Rectron, that I can contact to arrange the RAM upgrade. I have e-mailed Sony, via the contact page on their site and am awaiting feedback from them on whether there is any truth to the warranty voiding story or not.
craniac's place 