Share your experience!
I have recently bought a fantastic 17" widescreen Vaio (A197VP) and am mightily impressed with it, especially the display which is the best I have ever seen. However, I was very disappointed when I opened the bottom panel to add an extra 512mb ram only to find that I had to remove a 256mb card in order to do so.
Bang goes my 1gb ram and I just paid a very high price for just an extra 256mb ram. It seems to me that this is grossly unfair, as nowhere in any of the specifications does it state that the 512mb ram supplied is made up of two 256mb simms. So, in order to upgrade to 1gb I have to go out and buy another extremely expensive 512mb!!
Come on Sony, you can do better than this.
Happy but disappointed...
I agree, it's bad practice, people should be able to upgrade to 1GB without having to buy extra RAM rather than just 1x512MB.
It's very annoying, Sony should certainly say how RAM is organised. It's the same with virtually every manufacturer, just a way of cutting costs. TO be fair though, most are very good in stating that it's 2x512Mb for example. If they just put it in as a single 512Mb stick they would simply up the price of the computer to cover it though, so if you think about it you don't lose out as such.
They do:smileysad: 
Vaio-Link :
http://www.vaio-link.com/specifications/specifications.asp?l=en&m=1546 - takes you to this
Clink on the link in "memory".
http://www.vaio-link.com/tutorials/memory/memory.asp?m=1546&l=en&ts=p60
It appears they do as well - shame the diagrams are not very clear. It is wierd discovering the RAM is under the keyboard for this, mine is undernealth my notebook shielded with a metal flap.
Oops I had a feeling they might do, I was just being polite. Manu's almost always say somewhere. Still, it's how we learn isn't it.
Still, it's how we learn isn't it.
I have learned a lot by asking awkward questions and messing things up
yes they do, but the vaio dealer at my place first checked it because they experienced not always what sony says. So I let them check it before, so I luckily I wasn't surprised, but offcourse still bad from sony. To check your real stuff in your desktop or notebook check www.lavalys.com go for everest home edition, they will astonish you where sony is getting there stuff from, also good if you want to upgrade something on a alternative brand....
You've brought up one of the big mysteries of Sony for me. I mean my Sony computer has a Matsushita (Panasonic to you and me) DVD drive and a Toshiba hard drive. I mean WHY. Sony makes this stuff, what are they trying to say?