Is this the right time to get Vista?

When Vista came out, I wasn't planning on getting it for a few months. But now it has been released for a a year and a half, and with updates and all, how is it performing?

I remember all the criticism it had received months after release, about it being slow, or being virus prone and having bugs.
I will be a freshman in High School this fall, and I will be in a communications magnet. This includes broadcasting and such. I believe that to mean video editing and I am not sure what that is supposed to mean for my computer. What I do on the computer:
Youtube (Watch videos)
News, myspace, browse the internet, Yahoo!
Flash games such as on "Addictinggames.com" or "Studentfreestuff.com"
School projects and homework
And if anybody has been in a communications magnet, I will probably be doing some video editing and such. Windows Movie Maker material.

Can somebody help me with what components I might need, please check the following for choices:
The Dell Online Store: Build Your System

Well i got a new computer and it has vistat home peimumand i had problems with all of them and then i got my new computer and it has vista home premium with service pack 1 it has no problems what so ever, i would say yeah get it now, just make sure it says vista home premium + service pack 1 e-mail me for more questions lupetess1990@yahoo.com

i've had my laptop with vista for just over a year and its been fine, i use mine for exactly what you use it for and a few other things beside

at first it was a little niggly and had a few bugs in it but when i installed the service pack and updates it has performed better

id say go for it, all the bad reports have been more or less sorted by microsoft

people seem to forget when XP was released it was plagued with problems which microsoft sorted out with service packs and updates and still are!! today with XP so go for vista its fine, just make sure you get a computer with a beefy processor (dual 1.8 Ghz), at leat 2GB of RAM and a decent sized hard drive (160GB)

enjoy vista

You might want to upgrade to Home Premium (prices range from about 100-140 dollars). I would not reccomend Home Basic as it does not handle graphics very well. You also might consider switching to an Nvidia graphics card which was rated 94/100 by PC world and 5/5 by PC magazine. For your gaming.
(Home Premium comes with Windows Movie Maker, Windows Media Center, and Windows Media center. With Home Premium, burning discs is also a whole lot easier just in case you might need that.

If you are looking for a new laptop, you might consider the Acer Inspiron Series, or The Toshibal Sattelite A205 series.

Microsoft is supporting windows XP until 2013 or 2014 i believe, and XP had higher acclaim than Vista is currently receiving. If you already have XP, then i suggest you dont have to upgrade. Otherwise, go for Vista as you can no longer purchase XP from retail stores. If you are upgrading your operating system to Vista, make sure to follow the minimum system requirements on the box or you will NOT like Vista at all =)

For the Dell laptop, take the processor with the largest cache (L2) as it will increase your performance significantly.