Eh. From what I've seen, the Vaios are about as efficient as Dell - based on the CW series specifications and price as compared to the Dell Studios and Toshiba Satellites. The price is, indeed, largely driven up by the SSD, and I would go regular hard drive if it were available - but the other awesome things like video card (I looked at the top-notch Dell 13" series (Latitude, I think), and it was barely less expensive despite a significantly weaker GPU and I believe it had a regular hard drive as well), resolution, and all that with very nice portability and battery life just makes it so It's either Sony for $2000 or something weaker in all categories and abysmal in one (like Ex said, it's hard to find portability, battery life and graphics in one laptop; Vaio's the only one I found) for $1000. It's not exactly my money, and this is probably the only laptop that won't leave me itching to get a new one in two years anyway. Coupled with an external HD, I'm very happy with the configuration. Again, though, I need to check how comfortable the 13" will be and I'll read some more about it to see if it overheats easily. You know, when I checked about nine months ago, pretty much the only GPU I could find was the integrated intel 4500 thingimagig. Technology goes quickly. Back then, Sager looked like the best choice, but they actually replaced their 13" option with a 14" option with the same integrated graphics while everyone else has some GPU, so... yeah.

Say, should I go for the i7 or stick with the cheaper i5? Will the i7 be significantly louder or hotter? At what point would I notice a difference in performance?

Look, you want portability, the i5 is plenty strong, so I see no reason for an i7 which will only decrease your battery life. I'd actually recommend underclocking/undervolting it if you can deal with the slowdown. That's actually what most laptop CPUs (like the 1.3 ghz dual cores) do.

If it's not your money (if your parents are buying it for you, it's your money) then go right up to the $2k limit, including getting the i7 on the vaio.

So the i7 will decrease battery life? Convinced.

You don't have to be all "I'm superior because I value money more" on me. I remember Felagund dropping $4k on a gaming rig, and a laptop is important . Plus, the Vaio Z, unlike the Adamo or Envy or other similar ultraportable laptops, has fairly good returns on the investment in terms of performance.