I'll second this. If you're looking for a cheap, light notebook with mid-range features, look elsewhere; however, if you want a fast, portable machine for development/design, I don't know of anything better. I've had one for about a year (typing on it now), and it's probably the best development laptop I've ever used (maybe even best development machine, period).

The only drawbacks I've seen are the price (it's quite expensive) and Sony isn't very good about keeping their drivers up-to-date, so anything custom/customized in the machine (like the graphics card) is kind of annoying to get new drivers for.

The point about the drivers is a big one. I've had a few Sony laptops and I'll never buy one again because support is non-existent after a couple of years.

Disagree. Everyone in my office got VAIO Z's. They were great machines for about 9 months, then started having SSD, overheating, and graphics problems. I used to be a huge fan of the VAIO, but not any more.

However one needs to keep in mind that Vaio Z is a Windows machine which is a poor platform for Ubuntu or a linux in general.

I have a Vaio Z, and the only thing that doesn't work smoothly is dynamic GPU switching. This is not a problem specific to the Vaio, it is simply not supported by Xorg (yet?). All other important hardware is Intel so driver support is excellent.

The only thing not to like about this machine is the price.

I haven't tried Linux on any Sony devices yet, how is the driver support? I tend to buy Lenovo only since I'm always confident that full driver and wireless support will be there always. The Vaio Z is very enticing, but with similar offerings from Lenovo like the X220, I'm tending towards the familiar.

All the important hardware is, as I said, Intel and thus has good driver support. My Vaio Z additionally has an nvidia GPU, Ricoh SD/MS controller, Broadcom Bluetooth, and Ricoh camera. I'm using only the Intel GPU so I can't comment on the nvidia one, but I imagine it would work with their binary drivers. The SD reader works, MS does not (there is a driver for another Ricoh MS controller, might be similar; simply adding the PCI ID doesn't seem to be sufficient). Camera works with UVC driver. No idea about Bluetooth.

The machine can be configured with fingerprint reader, 3G modem, and maybe something else. I don't have any of the extras so I don't know the level of support for these.

When I got it last year, there were a few minor issues with suspend, but these have since been fixed.

If the answer involves giving money to Sony, then you asked the wrong question.