[bpicolo]

I had a Vaio Z once (This was ~2010, probably the first Vaio Z series). Performance was good in the 11" package. But... the hinge was terrible, and I snapped it with a light drop. Agonizing 1.5 month repair sendout. $300 bill. Same day it came back, broke the hinge in the same place.

Never bought another Vaio.

And this is why I just buy Macs now. Repair is easy - a couple hours at the Apple store. And the things are built well. They can take a bit of a beating, which you need in a computer you're moving around, have in a backpack that'll inevitably be tossed around a bit, etc etc.

[fiatpandas]

Using a 13" 2013 Vaio Z right now. It's a really great machine: 2x SSDs in RAID0, HDMI + VGA, 2x USB 3, SD reader, ethernet port with an interesting hatch mechanism to support its very thin form factor, 1080p, good thermal design.

The product design is quite nice as well, which was an important factor for me. When researching the model before purchasing, I found a YT video with one of Sony's industrial designers disassembling the entire laptop, describing all the components and a few of the design decisions, to a tech reporter. There was definitely a level of design consideration and technology craft that reminded me a lot of Apple, albeit not as sophisticated with material science. But it was the nicest 13" PC laptop at the time.

That said, there are issues with it: small key travel, flexible plastic body, bendy screen, out-of-box Sony bloatware (which I formatted away), lack of dedicated graphics, and it has absolutely terrible speakers.

[nsomaru]

I have the same model (SVZ13), I'm sure. Is yours carbon fibre? It's super fast and hasn't slowed down with a little maintenance. I'm sure it will go for a few more years with care. The docking station external graphics are useless though (only marginally better than the onboard intel HD) That said...

Limitations I'm coming up against right now:

1) Cannot upgrade from 8GB RAM which is soldered to the board. I want to run more VM's!

2)I want two bigger SSD's to replace the current 2x128GB scenario. Once again, these are soldered to the board.

3)My sim tray broke and if I remove it it will definitely not be usable any more.

4) would love to install linux on it but not sure what the RAID0 story is there with this machine.

There might be a way to do it, I just need a guide to parts etc (for ssd and hdd).

[fiatpandas]

No, I didn't get the carbon fiber version (nor the dock, which I'm glad I didn't based on peoples negative reviews of the video card).

I've been surprised at how much it has held up its speed, even with upgrading to Windows 10. I can see myself using it for at least 1.5–2 more years.

The on-board RAM and SSDs are unfortunate. I experience memory limit issues occasionally, especially with heavy Adobe usage.

I believe linux will support the RAID configuration (seeing it as one drive). Good way of checking is to boot Ubuntu on a thumb drive.

[beachstartup]

solid block of cnc machined aluminum vs. flimsy plastic. not a real hard choice.