I've heard from disappointed buyers. A couple of buyers have contacted me with their tales of woe surrounding the VAIO systems. The gist is that video capture works fine, but once they get clips into the system, the included software is an ancient and dysfunctional version of Adobe Premiere, and the utility to play back video into the camcorder doesn't work at all. Audio quality seems to be a particularly sore point.
They support only Sony camcorders. If you want any flexibility in the equipment you want to buy, read the fine print carefully: Only support for Sony camcorders is promised. Frankly, I consider this an outrageous use of Sony's marketing power. I would certainly not want to buy a Sony computer until this issue is resolved.
I've never seen one working well. I've visited a large variety of stores selling the VAIO units, and they seem to be either much slower than average or actually dysfunctional. I suspect the reason is that the software and background images loaded into the system at the factory severely sap system speed. You could always remove the jazzy features, but then you'd be left with a machine with no distinctive personality that just cost you hundreds of dollars more than comparable systems.
I'd take a long, hard look at them before buying a VAIO system. As a consolation prize for Sony, I do recommend their monitors. If you buy an Apple monitor, chances are that it's a rebadged Sony unit.