So far it's OK.
If it's just my perception, then Microsoft has done a good job. Windows Vista doesn't feel slower than XP-SP2.
My games, which are basically Football Manager 2008, and my productivity programs, which are currently Visual Studio, Photoshop and MS Office 2007 (which is so nice and cheap under the Ultimate Steal; sorry OpenOffice, you're dropped for a while), all do just as well under Vista. And I like Aero.
I don't like a few things though. UAC kept annoying me because I keep all my data on another partition which is accessible to all users, and my own organizational structure not in agreement with Windows's. I kept getting permission denials when I tried to download to my usual folders. It took 2 1/2 hours of digging through the folder permissions settings, but I've managed to make them go away.
Another is the fact that the ATI drivers Asus provided are old, slow and barely work. I used DriverHeaven's MobilityModder to make the 8.2 desktop Catalyst drivers work, but the fact that there are no 'reference' drivers for laptops from ATI's website is not nice. Notebook manufacturers tend to stop updating software for older models after they are no longer on sale.
If I consider the fact that I tweaked my XP-SP2 to oblivion and compulsively tried to optimize it, and that I've been generally ignoring performance settings in Vista, then this is a good product.
Is it worth buying if you're happily using WinXP? Given the pricing, I don't really think so. I got mine free with Express Upgrade, so I had nothing to lose by trying it.
Another 7 days before I choose to stick or format and revert.
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