I had the 64 bit Turion version of this machine with 2 Gigs of RAM and Windows XP on it.

The processing speed and ability to handle multiple applications simultaneously without slowing down significantly was the most impressive feature to me about this machine. I am used to having at least 10 applications open at any given time, and this is excluding multiple browser sessions (note that IE 8 beta and Google Chrome which I use most frequently use independent processes for each tab). I also like to use the stand-by option and shut-down or re-start my machine only about once in a week or so, and the stand-by (which I've had issues with, in the past with other laptops) option worked quite well without any issues. The price was pretty competitive as well. Also, AMD processors are known for heating up, but the cooling system seemed quite effective on this laptop.

On the down-side, my biggest complaint about it is its size. It's quite a heavy and baggy looking laptop. For me (and I presume for most others as well), the main reason I prefer laptop computers to desktops is the portability factor. When the laptop is not much smaller in size compared to a desktop and requires me to take an energy drink before lugging it around, kind of defies the purpose. The machine I used had an extended battery, which allowed me to use it un-plugged for long durations of time (~3-5 hours), but the added weight that brought on dampened this advantage quite significantly. I injured my fingers a couple of times while trying to squeeze it in to my backpack laptop case as well. The Hibernate option, which is again something I like to use often, did not work, and re-installation of the latest power drivers from the Dell site, also failed to get this feature to function. Last but not least, about 2 months after I started using it, I started to see blue-screens! The frequency increased to about two a day until I finally decided to re-install the OS. It worked fine again for about a week, before the dreaded blue-screens started to re-appear, after which I traded in the machine for a HP.

So over, all the experience I had with this machine was not very good. A buddy of mine recently got the newer Vostro (can't recall the model number) which is much smaller and sleeker. It's a lot like an IBM ThinkPad in appearance. I am yet to see how well it functions over time.