I've had my Dell Vostro 1500 for about 2 years now- I bought it through work and got a great price of £380 on it. The price included a lot of free extras, which at the time made it an amazing buy: it has bluetooth, dvd/rw, 2GB ram, a dual-core 1.5GHZ intel processor, and a GF 8400MS graphics card, making it more than enough laptop for my needs, and all loaded onto a copy of Windows Vista Business.

I predominantly use my laptop for the internet and word processing (being a student) but I also use it for guitar recording with a Line6 toneport and it handles it with aplomb. I've also run Flight Simulator X on it without a problem, the graphics really are superb.

When I take the laptop with me to places I often get asked how old it is. They tend to express shock when I say that it is 2 years old, as it looks new and is of a contemporary sleek design, with the blue LEDs and magnesium frame making for a particularly aesthetically pleasing computer with the beautiful glossy display- especially so now that I took an hour of my time to put a Windows 7 skin and visuals onto it about a week ago, so it appears exactly like a brand new Windows 7 laptop to the untrained eye!

My only problems with the computer have really been heat ones- when you have it on your lap it can get hot, especially when not on power saver mode. Battery life is good but not great at 2 and a half hours of normal use with WiFi on. Also, vista is a bit buggy but this is a problem not limited to the laptop and it is being improved over time. It's a great laptop and incredibly robust, and at the time the value was absolutely fantastic.