Dell Latitude E6510 Notebook - Core i5 i5-520M 2.40 GHz - 15.6" - Silver 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM - 320 GB H

I bought a Dell E6510 as a desktop replacement, and it's fabulous. I haven't turned on my old computer since I finished moving my files.

Before you buy, find out what screen you're getting. The E6510 has three options: 1366x768 ("HD"), 1600x900 ("HD+"), and 1920x1080 ("FHD"). I got the gorgeous FHD screen which lets me comfortably have small but sharp browser window, editor window, and debugger window visible simultaneously. I also got 4GB DRAM, 500GB hard disk, and Win 7 Pro.

Build quality is excellent. Drivers are stable. Everything just plain works. Lots of USB ports. All the tools I want: WiFi, SD card reader, Bluetooth... The 9-cell battery protrudes but gives several hours of run time. Both touchpad and TrackPoint work great.

Nits: To make room for large top-facing speakers (which sound pretty good), the keyboard doesn't have a separate number pad; using the Fn key to select numbers is lame. Dell docks don't have key locks like IBM docks. To use Microsoft Backup, you must disable the "Latitude ON" feature (which instantly boots a cached OS and starts your copy of Outlook to read e-mail) by converting D: to NTFS. Unfortunately, Microsoft Backup fails when it encounters a FAT32 partition. The computer is big and heavy, like all the machines in this class.

Pleasant surprises: I didn't have to delete any craplets! Dell accessories (spare power adapters, docks) are very inexpensive and readily available from many sources. The i5-520M processor is incredibly fast.

Just two regrets: I wish I'd sprung for the backlit keyboard, and I wish I'd gone with the 6-cell battery.