I've never really been happy with my Dell Inspiron 7548 laptop. There's a lot to like: the gorgeous 4K display, the best laptop keyboard I've ever used. It had the top processor available at the time, a good video card and plenty of memory. But for some reason, Dell decided to equip it with a ridiculously slow hard drive.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that it took more than 5 minutes to fully boot up, and several minutes to open applications like Excel or Outlook. Insanely frustrating. If I had a conference call with a client, I had to make sure every application I might need was open before the call started.

Replacing that HD with this SSD solved every problem I had with the laptop. The thing boots in less than a minute. Excel opens in 3 seconds. Outlook opens in 4 seconds. Web pages load faster. And, as a bonus, the formerly-annoying fans now barely run at all.

The replacement process itself was very simple, and took less than a half hour. Honestly, the hardest part was getting the back cover off the laptop. The SSD came with very clear instructions and software to clone my existing hard disk (if you're going to clone the disk, you'll need a USB-to-SATA cable). After cloning, all I had to do was open the laptop, take out the battery, take out the HD bracket, remove the HD from the bracket, replace it with the SSD, put the bracket and the battery back in, close it up and boot.

For an investment of about $90 (SSD + cable) and 30 minutes of my time, I feel like I have a brand new laptop. I'm thrilled. Thank you, KingFastl!!