I have a beefed up Inspiron 9300 and I recommend it.
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/prod...=19&l=en&s=dhs
It's fast, it's a desktop replacement, it kicks ass. I bought an extra batter, now I can watch 3 DVDs with the 2 batteries, or work for 6-9 hours on regular things using the battery. 256MB NVIDAŽ GeForce? Go 6800 video card is great too for gaming. I've had no problems.
It's BIG! But that's not that big of an issue to me.
Also I checked google for "Dell Coupons" and ended up buying it from the Small Business section of Dell with a 30% discount.
Only Complaint: I have the 8x dual layered DVD burner. However with that DVD burner the actual CD-RW part burns at a max speed of 24x. WTF Sony, WTF is wrong with you?
The only thing I would change: I would get their 'complete care' warranty that covers spills, dropping it, running it over with a car, etc. Why? Because I had no issue with my 10" Fujitsu because it was small, but this 17" laptop seems to want to me to spill coffee on it and wierd things like that.