The Sony VGN S3XP laptop is a superb little powerhouse and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a laptop to do anything (other than gaming). I've had mine for a couple of months now.

I've had no performance issues at all - I run a variety of apps from Office to Cakewalk to SQL Server. No problems with peripherals either - WLAN is top notch, I use a Bluetooth mouse and never had any cat5 LAN issues. The display is excellent - it's a Sony, that's kinda taken as read. The keyboard and touchpad, considering it's such a small unit, are pretty much as you'd expect on a huge 15" clunker. The fan does kick in on battery quite often, it's pretty quiet though, no noisier than any other laptop I've had.

If I had any criticism, it would be the default disc partitioning (although, through my own stupidity, I realise why this is the way it is - see below). Straight out the box the S3XP has a C:=30Gig and D:=40Gig (plus recovery part). 'Cos it has just the one HD, I'd prefer to have one 70Gig partition, but there's no option.

I found the default partition setup quite annoying until I installed an old app that wasn't SP2 compliant and caused the DVD driver to go AWOL (still recognised as a CD drive tho'). I hadn't created recovery discs at that point, but after a short conversation with Sony's tech support, it was explained that I could recover by running the recovery tool locally. This might seem a little long winded, but from that experience I realised that Sony have put a lot of effort into user Disaster Recovery. As it turned out I could recover the C: partition AND keep all the data I'd copied onto D - about a 20 minute operation. There is another option to recover the entire HD. Anyway, lesson learned - create the recovery discs as soon as you get the fecker out the box....(and move you're My Documents folder to D:)

In summary, it's exactly what I was looking for and more. After the recovery experience, I can't really fault the S3XP on anything. As far as cost goes, I'd initially looked at the Dell M series, but once I'd spec'd their units to the S3XP's spec they're way over the Sony's asking price.

(I do have to add a footnote re: the 'heat'. Every review I'd read before buying and since mentions the right hand CPU cooler heat - or hard disc heat - que?!?!? I fully believe that the RH 'heat' is mentioned only because every other previous reviewer has mentioned it. CPUs get 'warm' and the S3XP gets 'warm'. If you don't like 'warm' don't buy it - or any other laptop for that matter!!)

I have used my Sony VGN S3XP for two months. Altogether I am very disappointed. The hard disk heats up and this makes it very unpleasant to use the laptop. I complained to Sony and they replaced the hard disk but this did not change anything.

I have had many laptops (even some Sony's) over the past 15 years. They were all fine. This one is acceptable. My doctor even warns me off the health hazard of exposure to such heat.

Ok, it gets hot. Almost too hot to touch along the right hand underside actually. But if you've had your kids or you have the intelligence to go for such a thoroughbred then surely not an insurmountable problem? (I'm thinking book / newspaper ... er, no it's gone, sorry)

As for the long term reliabilty problems running at those temperatures ... Well, I've had mine for just over two weeks so to be honest couldn't possibly comment. And did you say battery life? Well 2 hours is probably the limit at full warp speed (Brightness at max, optical drive on etc etc) but having said that, bright IS bright. If you're into marathons rather than the 100m sprint then slowing things up a wee bit will work wonders. The system settings for power management, for example, have a slider control with 9 graduations for the screen's brightness. Even the lowest setting is perfectly usable for day to day office tasks. "How much difference does this make?" I hear you ask ... Well, again it's too early for me to say as my battery isn't even run in properly yet but from the time I've had mine I'd estimate (VERY ROUGHLY) at least 20%. Talk about hedging your bets.

I won't bore you with the tech spec (That's what the net's for) but in short:

1 If you want a top performer and ultimate battery life isn't the be all and end all - Buy one.

2 If you want an easily portable machine (Weighs less than 2kg / 4.4lbs) with performance to blow your desktop out the water (Ok - So mine is only a 2.4GHz P4 machine) - Buy one.

3 If you want a "looker" that's going to look the biz and last for years - Buy one.