Yep, he did ...and went on to M.2 drives then as that's even betterer...but won't be an option on that lappy...

No, an M.2 would not be an option here, but a regular SSD would most certainly be a marked improvement on a 5400 RPM HDD.  The extra RAM could come later as Win 10 will operate on 4GB reasonably with the current CPU and a new SSD.  However, I would recommend the extra RAM later to increase system efficiency.

Get the 4GB RAM and upgrade the CPU to i3 or i5, I think you can skip the SSD to be honest.

Kinda hard to upgrade a CPU that's soldered into the board. I have sent a message to the local shop asking what labor cost there would be for installing the SSD and it looks like I can grab a 256GB Mushkin on Newegg for $60 or so I'll look into that option. I kinda like this Dell. 

And how's he going to do that on a motherboard designed for AMD?

Simply put, this is a low-end laptop with a motherboard that leaves little to no scope to upgrade the CPU or GPU, so other than a SSD and extra RAM, it is what it is.

To say forget about the SSD, obviously you've not done a HDD to SSD upgrade.  I have and the performance hit is significant.

Particularly if the HD is a 5400...

It's even better than moving from a ide drive to a raid drive. Which was a makedly better performance especially in gaming. Sorry stupid auto correct.

Guys I know this notebook isn't a fast one but it's fast enough for me for the moment. Can't wait to see how fast it will work with the SSD and 8GB of DDR4. Here are some times I recorded for anyone that wants to know...

Booting from a complete shutdown to seeing the log on screen: 50 seconds
Time from entering the system password to a usable desktop with all background apps loaded: 3 seconds
Complete restart from the Windows desktop back to the log on screen: 1 minute, 55 seconds
Open Microsoft Word: 12 seconds
Open Chrome and load 5 tabs from previous session: 23 seconds
Open Facebook in chrome - the most memory intensive website I visit: 4 seconds
Open Hoyle Card Games 2013 - The newest game I own: 18 seconds
Open Windows Mail - 11 seconds

It's not unbearable, I know it could be better. But it's faster than the old HP I had a month ago. Maybe a newer dual core system has better cores than an old quad core system. Seems faster. But it's AMD so it runs hot, around 95 degrees. :/

If that's 'F' then fine....if it's 'C' then DO NOT EVER USE IT ....

Yeah, those upgrades would see a performance increase.  Thing is, you don't have to do both at once.  The RAM would be the more expensive, so if you can't afford it straight up, you could always wait and just get the SSD to start.  That in itself would see a significant boost while you save for the DDR4... which has also seen a drop in price in recent months.

Anyhow, kona, all the best with it.  

OK guys, if your willing to put up with the bad music and length here is a video of my model being upgraded. I'm OK getting the screws and keyboard out, but those little ribbon cables might be too tricky. The local shop wants $50 to do it but the thought of someone else upgrading the system scares me a bit. What if they screw it up?

Dell 15-3000 Hard Drive Replacement

Don't worry about taking your machine to a techie, they do this stuff all the time and would likely do a more efficient job quicker than you could.

And 50 bucks is pretty decent, so me, I'd go for it.