I was very happy and proud of this computer for the first few months but you might want to read the update at the bottom of page before continuing . I bought this HP new in December 2006. It has a duo-core AMD Turion 64 processor and 1 gig of Ram. I didn't realize how fast this thing was until I went back and fiddled around with my old desktop which had an AMD 3.2 Athlon processor and 512 ram but seemed slow as molasses in comparison even with it s faster single processor. One thing that I find most useful is the touch-sensitive scrollbar. I've seen other types of these on other laptops but this one is different. You never need to click and hold the left mouse-pad button to scroll. To characterize this computer as user-friendly is an understatement. The wide screen is an added bonus but does take up a lot of battery life.But it has a brightness control that allows you to dim the screen to save batter power. It has a dual-layer DVD recorder with Lightscribe Pc Cardbus slot four USB inputs Wi-Fi 5 in 1 card slot Expansion Port S-Video to name of few of the many features. The one I bought was sold with Windows Media Edition already installed and had an offer to upgrade to Vista for free. I decided to stick with XP because most of my programs like Nero required me to upgrade to their latest version for Vista at an extra cost and some of the drivers for some programs aren't even available for Vista. The only downside of buying this computer is some of the Trial Software that comes pre-installed. The most bothersome program was the Norton Internet Security which caused major crashes and hangups until I uninstalled it.Since then everything has been running smooth as silk. Overall the laptop has a solid build.and has performed beyond my expectations. It opens and closes easily. It has touch-sensitive controls for Media and excellent built-in sound system by Altec-Lansing. I highly recommend this and think that it is the best laptop out there in it s price range. Update: The wireless lancard started having an intermittent problem and kept shutting itself off. Had if replaced but the problem persisted. Sent the laptop in again for repairs since it was still under warranty. They had to replace the motherboard AND the display since it was burning out and I didn't even realize it.  In essence they had to replace 70 percent of the computer's hardware in less than a year. One could say that I just perhaps bought a lemon. But considering that it never left my home and I treated it with kid gloves and never dropped it then I for one will avoid all HP products like the plague.