I second what others have said regarding Vista.
Its a complete resource hogger.
remember all the bells and whistles come at a price (In case of Vista its the performance with which u pay).
Stick to XP till Vista SP 2 stable is released. What i suggest is to try getting OEM OS which i find is not offered as an option in Dell in most cases.
@ Vikram18. Go for the xps worth the last penny u pay for it.
@ Moralfibre : get a dell. I dont have a good experience with HP. Will not have the 100 BHP u have in ur ride
@ W 12 : I had an Acer myself for 2 years. Didn't have many problems though its a bit fragile and the body coating gets bad real fast. Suggest to go for Dell, Toshiba , Sony.
@ Nitroxx: Buddy as some one has already said, the build quality is no longer the same.
@ shuvc: You have a great balance of price and performance in the Inspiron.