I've used this laptop daily now, for at least 5-6 hours a day, often running it for 12+ hours at a time for the last 5 years. Nothing's broken on it, and the only problem I've had is running out of disk space. I've upgraded the CDRW/DVD-ROM to a dual layer DVD-RW, I've just placed an order with Dell to upgrade my RAM from 1GB to 2GB, and will shortly buy a faster, larger hard drive. It should then see me for another 3-4 years, accidents permitting

I have the 1600x1200 UXGA screen which takes a lot of beating - I prefer it to the 17" 1440 x 900, WXGA+ screen I have on my new Sony Vaio VGNAR51E at work.

I use Visual Studio 2005, Cubase SX3, Reason 4, all with no problems. Whilst I was going through the MMORPG phase, it ran World of Warcraft and Everquest with no problems, and it's pretty much made my desktop redundant. It is heavy, so it's not something you'd just throw in a briefcase and expect not to notice.

The fan can be obtrusive in a quiet room, but once it's in an office atmosphere you don't notice it. With a fan control program like the one found at diefer.de you don't get overheating problems.

I don't really use Bluetooth that much, but the odd occasion I do, it would be nice to have it built in instead of having to find my dongle. Not really a problem though.

I'd recommend a 5150 without any hesitation. I most certainly won't be fouling it with the bloated malware that is Vista - Im sticking to XP Pro. If it's not broken, don't fix it!