.02 cents here... I agree
My Dell inspiron 1525 is a POS, I had an older (new when i got it) b-130 with XP and it was infallable (?SP)
And this is one of the BEST answers I see here.. I had :cry a macbook 2.4 running 10.5.6 AND Vista made the worst mistake of my life... I sold it, thus the HAD :cry...
Yup, thats the way to go, get yourself a MacBook (the cheap one is $999 2.0Ghz) and it can go with Windows and be upgraded to 4Gb memory, the Hard drive is EASY to swap, and I have seen them with 320Gb installs, I don't know if a 500 will fit, but for a grand, it's a deal, just dont buy apple's memory upgrade, 4gb can be had for like $40 at newegg, and you'll save a couple hundred.
My .02cents, if you can or wanna, just sell the Dell on fleabay, and get a mac.