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Interesting.
For years Sony have been regarded as the defacto standard for all things audio/visual then more recently in the computing world with the Vaio range of laptops.
However in recent times the names Sony & Quality don’t seem to have the same meaning.
Samsung however, a relatively new contender, anyone else remember the bloke from Hi de Hi in the early 80’s first appearing on TV adverts telling us about this new name Samsung.
As I speak I’m typing on a gorgeous 22″ widescreen Samsung monitor, it seems that this company is going from strength to strength, certainly the build quality is up to Sony standards, finish, and performance too, the price though…
Is most certainly far more… reasonable. I absolutely believe that you pay a great deal more for the name Sony than perhaps it’s worth these days.
Sony I think would do well to look out for this young company snapping at its heels.
I agree with what you’re saying. The words Betamax and now PS3 come into the same sentence. It’s not that they’re bad products, it’s just that they were managed badly (not selling the betamax rights to other manufacturers & pursuing Blu ray that nobody needed and delaying release of PS3 then it being too pricey compared to competition)!!
It’s sad really as Sony had it in the bag with the PS1 and PS2 and even the PSP.
Looks set that they’ve missed the boat with netbooks too now – I think there were some reports they’ll release their first one in April, the only thing is it will almost certainly be expensive compared to others, and as there is already a lot of choice, most people who want one will have already bought one; therefore not needing to buy another for quite a while. It’s not like they’re really going to go out of date if they’re just meant for browsing the internet and so on.
That said, if by some miracle Sony managed to produce a netbook that’s built like the NC10, has the same HDD capacity as the NC10, same battery life, screen size (or maybe an extra inch??), same great keyboard AND squeeze in an impossible blu ray player ALL for under £300……. then they MIGHT just have something lol
I agree too. Sony has certainly created some great products over the last few decades, but this seems to have given them blinkered vision. They only get away with such premium prices now because of the name and people are realising that and switching to alternative brands which offer the same quality at more reasonable prices.
It’s funny that you should compare Samsung to Sony. I (and my husband as well) have a 22″ Samsung monitor too which replaced a 19″ Sony CRT. My TV is currently a Sony which we’ll be replacing in the new year – and my eye has been on one of the Samsung models currently available.
I have for a long time been a purchaser of Sony products but they seem to be in deep trouble with many areas underperforming,
Noone can dispute that black is the new colour for AV products but with Sony’s AV products there was always the option of silver. but not so with their Blu-Ray players.
My 46″ LCD Sony TV ihas a matt black surround but the video player (for the kids), 7.1 Receiver, speakers and DVD recorder are all silver and Sony. There is no way I am junking them so a black Blu-Ray player can be added.
Sony is not alone though as noone makes a silver Blu-Ray player.
I have weaned myself off Vaio’s and have an Xbox 360 in preference to the PS3.
Sony has always meant quality in the past but i think like any good manufacturer who thrives on their status they can become slack. Sony lost a lot of money with the bluray fight and currently that money is not being returned due to the slow take up, and can only get worse over the next year or so. Sony also had to sell off some divisions a while back to sustain their losses. As such they have less capital to invest and need to cut costs along the line.
I have to say i have been a fan of samsung from the start and believe that they actually produce quality products but at a realistic price, something Sony place a premium on. Not only that but Samsung produce a lot of panels for most LCD manufacturers, and if you read the reviews in magasines like what hifi and video, homecinema choice etc there panels are constrantly taking top awards, something Sony used to claim stake to.
But it has to be said that Sony has always been at the forefront of development, betamax, minidisc, bluray but in todays market the amount spent on R&D has to be cut back which means companies are less willing to stick their head out on new technologies, and those that do i.e sony face huge risks.
I hadn’t thought about it before but actually yes Samsung are slowly taking over. I am generally brand ambivalent choosing to buy based on features but I looked around at home and was suprised by just how much Samsung I own. And yes, 10 years ago it would have all been Sony.
So I think I have to vote Yes.
I do agree with the above statements regarding Sony’s omnipotence in the gaming market in the mid to late 90s, but thankfully that time has come and gone. Nintendo ensured that the PSP didn’t become the portable gaming console Sony envisioned and Nintendo, again, made sure that the PS3 would languish behind its own console, Wii.
I am impressed by how Samsung have managed to gain market penetration within Europe over the last few years, and it is a testament to the company’s business strategy that they have been able to do so. They make products that equal, and sometimes rival Sony’s own, and sell them for a lesser price a lot of the time. It is the oldest game in the book to lower your prices in order to gain traction in a market, and it is working wonders for Samsung. Their design is superb and is right up there with the other great product designs from the likes of Pioneer, Bank & Olufsen and Apple.
I cannot wait for more Samsung products to reach the market, as their handsets, netbooks, TVs and even printers look unbelievable.
I’ve a Sony CRT 14″ TV, purchased 1991 still going strong. Cost £200, which was a lot of cash in those days. However, I have steered clear of VAIOs since becoming a fairly regular buyer of laptops… when I was a postgrad student due to cost, now because I know from anecdotal evidence of friends and colleagues that they are not worth the money. Sony are still trying to ride on the back of the reputation they had 20-odd years ago for quality.
Looking for a new main TV at the moment, went into Currys and had a look at Samsung and Sony…..no contest. Samsung won on quality and price. I await the January sales!
Well to reinforce whats been said my 4 year old Vaio died last night seemingly from a failed CPU/Graphics cooling fan. If left off for a while it will try and boot but each attempt results in more Windows files being missing, freezing and garbled graphics. It won’t even stay alive long enough to read a floppy disc let alone a Windows CD,.
RIP
Shame it didn’t last until the NC10 was delivered and setup.
Strangely, I am typing this on the kids desktop which was once a Vaio Desktop – The non standard power supply went on that so a few parts were cannibalised to make a diy desktop
I admire Samsung for the quality and price of their products. I think Sony have made some big mistakes and are in a bit of trouble. I think they fluffed up a golden opportunity in the DAP market to build on the Walkman brand for example. But they forced users to use some awful software and have been playing catchup ever since. They just haven’t moved on with the times and a smart fresh company like Samsung is taking the market shares from under their nose.
This past weekend I did the unthinkable… bought my first hi-def tv without any research whatsoever… an unbelievably out-of-character move. My wife talked me into the bargain-basement store-closing price. Fortunately it was a Samsung LCD 46″…. when I got home I can’t describe my relief when I saw the consistently superior reviews for their whole product line at Newegg and Amazon. Try it yourself. Utter dominance HDTVs.
Funny thing, I didn’t think too much about brand name, I was just showroom shopping and thought the Samsung was just as good as the Sony (and others) for a great deal less. Then I remembered that the NC10 is made by Samsung and so is my trusty old cell phone… and I thought, “yeah they make some good stuff”. Glad I pulled the trigger on the tv.
I’d like to change my vote from “don’t care” to “yes” 🙂
I too am a Samsung junkie, most of my AV and electrical stuff is Samsung.
I didn’t set out to buy the one brand, and didn’t buy them all at the same time, but when I have had cause to buy something new over the past couple of years, it has always been Samsung stuff that has caught my eye and appealed to both the heart and the wallet!
Saying that, when I bought a new MP3/MP4 player earlier this year, I stuck with Sony due to sound quality reputation and I was not let down.
It’s interesting this should come up because my household is currently undergoing a Sony => Samsung transition of sorts. When we got our first really big TV (in 2000), of all the choices the Sony apparently looked the best (though I must say I never much liked that TV, as I typically dislike anything projection-based). Recently, in our final relent to the coming HD standard, we looked several times in our local Best Buy (which just opened last year and is three minutes from my house) and came away with…
…a Samsung! The LN52A750, to be exact, 52″ of absolute LCD perfection. It calibrated almost perfectly, and though as yet we STILL don’t have HD service (for various reasons that will likely devolve into a rant about AT&T if I get into it) I have never seen TV quite the way it looks on that Samsung. Now, the last card to fall will be that old Sony DVD/VHS player sitting under the Sammy, which will be replaced with a Blu-Ray player by…
…you guessed it, Samsung! Which is the ultimate slap in the face, considering Sony piloted the Blu-Ray format.
I’ve always liked Samsung. I have an old, circa 2002 17″ LCD monitor from Samsung that, to this day, still has better text display than anything I’ve seen for less than four figures. I’ve had various Samsung components in my computers, and many of them have outlasted the machines in which they worked. And now, of course, I have an NC10. Hopefully it will live up to the durability and performance I associate with this brand.
Sony isn’t horrible, IMO, but I do think that they’re sort of like the working man’s Apple–you pay a little more for the name, and you don’t necessarily get anything more for your money.
Now if Samsung would just attack the audiophile market… 🙂
strange this is that according to Domestic and General for every single Sony LCD TV that is repaired under warranty there are 67 Samsungs . . .
I cannot quote a source on the internet for this – I was told by our D&G rep.
However this goes against my experience with 2 Sony HDD DVD recorders – piles of *%%^!
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