Windows Vista runs great on a $500 Dell PC

While Ed Bott at ZDNet had to wait for Dell to come and replace a fried motherboard (said frying happening during an unsuccessful BIOS upgrade), once he got the box running, it just flew on Windows Vista -- and he says all reports of slowness about the new Microsoft OS are, in this case, unfounded:

I’ve read several complaints about Vista taking too long to display menus or open Explorer windows. Everything’s downright snappy here. Menus show up instantly, and with the exception of Windows Mail, which takes five seconds or so to start, I experience nothing that makes me feel I’m having to wait even a little.

and:

Over a network using the C521’s Fast Ethernet (not Gigabit Ethernet) adapter, it takes me 16:51 to copy 6.3GB of files. On a nearly identical system running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and plugged into the same Ethernet switch, copying the same batch of files from the same source takes 16:56, a statistical dead heat. I plug in a 500GB USB drive and copy more than 80GB of music files to the Music folder, and the file transfer moves just as quickly as it does on Windows XP.

Shoulda popped for the gigabit Ethernet, I think ... but it's good to see a happy Dell/Vista customer.