Found a Sony Vaio 13.3" laptop at best buy for $630. It's a core i5 with 4gb DDR3 RAM and a 500GB HDD (5400RPM).

I've never owned a Vaio laptop, but I loved the Vaio desktop I had a few years ago. Anyone have any opinions on them? I'm a HP fanboy without doubt, but this price is pretty attractive. The only thing I'd do is probably buy a 120gb SSD and put it in the Sony.

I'm not averse to buying a Mac and installing Windows on it (that way I can still run SQL Server and other Windows apps needed for school), but I'm not sure about how it will perform.

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Never been a Vaio person...they've always felt flimsily constructed to me.
If I were plunking down my own cash for a laptop I'd go

1. MacBook
2. IBM / Lenovo
3. Toshiba

I go for durability and rock solid design, but I generally only travel and work with my laptops, they aren't parked on a desk all day.

My $.02...take it or leave it

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Hold my beer and watch this...

What about my concerns with running windows on a mac?

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cross will know more than me, but i run office with no problem at all on my MAC... and i know they have a program that will allow you to bounce from mac OS to windows without an issue... i believe, and cross correct me if im wrong, any thing windows can do, a mac can do.... better.... with less headaches of ownership...

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You can bring Windows with you.

Need to run the occasional Windows app? Your new Mac can run Windows XP or Vista natively thanks to Boot Camp software included with Mac OS X. And do it with typical Mac ease. Add third-party software like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop, and you can even run Mac and Windows side-by-side. All of which means your Mac is capable of running practically any business software you’re likely to need.

http://www.apple.com/business/macatwork/#seven

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My Mac (which is older, it came out July 2008 and I know they're better now) had Parallels on it which ran Windows in a Window. That worked fine, but the performance was definitely lacking. It would probably run better now, or I'm sure Bootcamp would work fine, too.

Problem is, I need more than the occasional windows app. I need to run SQL Server for school, as well as Visual Studio and other solely Microsoft applications (I have no problem using OpenOffice or things like that, but there's no way I can substitute the applications my school requires me to use for assignments). I like Mac for the stable hardware aspect and the sexy factor, and that's about it.

To be honest, though, I really haven't had many issues with PC hardware components either. I ran a laptop w/o antivirus or malware scanners for almost 2 years...when I finally scanned it the only thing it found were tracking cookies from legitimate sites.

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Bought a new laptop today. 4GB of zoom. Toshiba of course. Little 14" mofo.

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mechaphil

Newer mac hardware can run windows no-sweat.
I never really did the boot camp thing because I use both OS's simultaneously. I've got a coworker that has windows 7 running in a VM all the time.

VMware Fusion and Crossover (glorified wine implementation) will take care of all your needs.

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Hold my beer and watch this...