Evaluating Laptop brands

Well, I recently got a deal from one shop in Borivali: Toshiba L650 (i3 processor, 15" display, 4GB RAM, win 7 home premuim, 320GB HDD) for Rs. 33k. There was no other laptop with this config for that price - Dell was the worst for the same H/W config: It had only DOS (i.e., no OS pre-installed) but still cost 34k!!

Initial feedback on Sony VAIO VPCEB45FG:

Really disappointing on multimedia front. The sound cracks. Display quality while playing (non-HD) movies is not very good ... lots of pixels are visible when put on full screen.

I have been convinced by fellow colleagues that the sound issue is not common to Sony and the issue must be with this particular piece. Am going to take it to the service centre this weekend (really tiresome, even more mentally, to see this happening on a brand new purchase).

Excellent in most other respects (speed, keyboard, screen etc.)