Bills seen my laptop a few times now, its a year old and I got a steal of a deal on it. Just a Core 2 Duo 2ghz, 4gb ram, 320gb hdd, nvidia 9600gt 512mb (not shabby for a laptop), blu-ray player. Have an external 20" monitor and 1.5tb external hdd for backup/storage. For a while I had it triple booting Vista/W7/Ubuntu, deleted Ubuntu because I filled my 500gb external hdd, now that I have the 1.5tb Ill reinstall Ubuntu and maybe look into another flavor or 2 of Linux. Plus I have about 5 types of Linux/old versions of Windows running as Virtual Machines.
Not a powerhouse but runs all my programs (not much of a PC gamer anymore) very well, had Vista Home Prem as base OS but Ive been running W7 Ult x64 for over a year now (yes, you read that right). Need to get a copy of of RTM OS, beta and RC have been awesome so far.
People who bash Windows and love their Macs, good for you. What you dont realize is Microsoft has to write their OS to run on thousands of different hardware combintions while Apple has to do a fraction (maybe 100 for laptop/desktop and all the processor/video card combinations that matter). Big difference when you start to think about it.
I hate buying a PC, much prefer building them so I can start with just the OS and install the drivers I need. No bloatware, crappy big business anti-viruses (Norton and McAfee both suck), etc. Use AVG Free Anti-Virus, Ad-Aware, PeerBlock, and the only program Ive bought for system maintenance is TuneUp Utilities. Great program, been using it since mid-08.
To remove the preinstalled crap on your Windows system, use PC Decrapifier to remove it all easily. Easiest thing to do is run it as soon as you boot your new PC.
Hopefully this summer Ill be able to afford a desktop again, not sure if Ill go AMD or Intel, ATI or nVidia...
For anyone thinking of getting Windows 7, do it. I actually liked Vista a lot, I beat the crap out of that OS on my old laptop for over a year going in and modifying registry keys, playing with different settings in policies, etc and it only bsod'ed on me maybe 3 times (all were due to me fu<king something up in the registry and I ran System Restore, voila). But W7 is a lot more productive for me, love Aero Snap, Aero Peek, and the new taskbar plus Mobility settings. Ive used Vista maybe a combined total of 2 months in the total time Ive had my current laptop (bought 12/28/08) as I installed W7 beta the first week of 09 and then the RC when it came out. As for stability its maybe a little better, but it uses about 600mb less ram out of the box than Vista and opens applications a little quicker than Vista.