Dell Inspiron 1520

At the price you reviewed it at I agree there's plenty of more desirable competition.
However I bought mine in January for £649.99 inc VAT which made it a bit of a bargain.
I've got a graphics card capable of playing all the latest games in medium to high detail (8600m GT), a large hard drive, DVD RW, 2GB memory and a speedy core 2 duo processor.
It makes a great desktop replacement. I decided I'd like something portable I could use everywhere rather than have to go up to my room and boot up the desktop. Compared to a desktop the graphics performance is poorer but so long as you drop the detail a bit its fine! On a small screen (15.4 inches) you don't need such high resolutions.
Runs cool too and has been reliable. The only problem I've had has been the hard drive. Avoid samsung if you get the choice. It beeped and clicked loudly and smart values got worse. I've converted that into an external backup device and have purchased a western digital scorpio 320GB. Makes it quicker still