Curt, is this a V505 or a Z1?
In another incarnation, I'm the list admin for the Sony505 mailing list on Yahoo with about 2200 members last time I checked. I've owned about a dozen Sony VAIOs, and currently have an R505TEK and Picturebook C1-VPK. Most of the time you see posts from me, they're coming from a 1 kilogram Picturebook using a Verizon cellular modem pc card (works everywhere, unlike a wifi card). Easy to carry anywhere and does most everything, thanks to a 60GB 7200-rpm hard drive and 320MB of RAM. I've got a ton of MP3s on it, as well as 10 DVD movies and my favorite episodes of Friends, Mad About You, Frasier, and Sports Night.
The VAIOs are well-designed and durable, but you'll find that they aren't as well supported as IBM or Toshiba. Replacement parts are trickier to get, driver updates a little less forthcoming, and DIY info from them is non-existent. But I've yet to have a Sony just die on me.
My other favorite laptop model is IBM's Thinkpad. I've got 4 of those currently, in various states of hot-rodding/modification.
As a side note - Best Buy sells an off-brand notebook that's designed by Porsche's design business, the
VPR Matrix.
Emanuel