Sony Store

Unfortunately this store is out of business too.
I’ve always enjoyed walking in here whenever I went to Menlo Park Mall and what see what they had available. They even let you try some of their electronics too, including laptops and PS4s. Of course their «home theater» rooms were neat.
This was where I bought my Google TV at a sale price and an additional HDMI cable at a regular price (come on — that cable wasn’t THAT expensive!).
I’ve NEVER had an issue with customer service here at all. They were always patient at explaining certain terms or features that I didn’t understand at all.
So long, Sony.

I was laptop shopping and after going to Best Buy and Staples and not finding a somewhat high-​end PC (I was looking for 8GB RAM, good CPU, SSD drive, around 15″ screen) I decided to go to the Sony store. I went in knowing that I was probably going to pay a premium, but I needed a new laptop because my old one was dying. A sales guy greeted me and I asked him about the high-​end laptops, and the first ones he showed me were really expensive. Then he showed me some middle line ones (I ended up with a Vaio T Series Ultrabook). I asked some questions that he couldn’t answer, but someone else on the floor was able to answer them. It came with Sony’s suite of Music/​DVD/​Sound software, which helped ease the pain of the cost.
The upsell of the extended warranty wasn’t too bad, because I had previously asked if they get a lot of returns, and he said it’s a solid machine, so I said I didn’t need the additional warranty.

For a premium PC brand, you sure don’t get premium service.
Sony’s brick-​and-​mortar stores may be nice places to buy, but when it comes to issues with the products they sell, be prepared to do some extra work.
Sony offers an in-​house technical team dubbed «Backstage», though you wouldn’t know it by looking at its section of the store. Often, it’s empty, and actually finding a technician is a feat in and of itself. During a friend’s last issue with his Sony Vaio, we needed to make 3 separate trips to the store to have his machine looked at. Apparently keeping your support area staffed is not a major sticking point for Sony, or maybe it’s just this store in particular that has such difficulty with it.
Naturally, you also have to deal with the standard holier-​than-​thou attitude from technical staff, which has become commonplace in consumer electronic shops, though by no stretch of the imagination is it excusable.