Both members have good suggestions. I once asked a similar question on a Tech Board and got many different responses. I'm not very technical, so it was interesting, but I did my homework and had to decide what was good for me by using Google and reading reviews. I mean, let's say you are in the market for a car and you ask the same question. People who care about the horsepower/torque ratio will give you a different answer than people who just want basic transportation. A family person might tell you to get an SUV or a minivan. Someone who likes a pickup for carrying stuff or tows a boat...well you get what I'm saying.
The only suggestion I will give you initially is to get a desktop and monitor, not a laptop. This is just my very humble opinion based on my experience owning both. I'm positive thousands of people will disagree with me for a number of reasons. I am currently using a Toshiba Satellite. It's just fine, but you get much more bang for your buck with a desktop. I realize you can always add another keyboard, mouse, speakers, more USB ports, etc. to a laptop, but if you always use your computer in the house and rarely move it, that's my suggestion, since you want to stay within a budget.
Regarding Vista, I've been helping my sister pick out a computer and all the models I've looked at have at least Vista Home Basic.
RE: RAM memory. I agree with Konane, especially since most PCs have shared video and that can use up a lot of RAM, but I wouldn't pass up a great deal if memory was the only drawback. My laptop was $899 by itself when I bought it Aug 05 during a Back To School sale for $499 (after a ton of rebates) with a free D-Link router, a free Icon carrying case and a free Canon Pixma printer. I was able to run XP, SP2 with 256MB, but I immediately ordered 512MB from Crucial.com. Highly recommend this company.
If I were to go out today and buy a new desktop and I had a $500-$600 price range in mind, this might be what I'd get currently on sale on CircuitCity.com for $549. You can add a 17" LCD monitor and a printer for another $70 bucks! (total of $619) There are 2 packages if you decide to go to this site. One is for a CRT monitor, which I would never buy, esp when you can get a 17" LCD for less than $100. (when I order something online, I usually pick it up at the store anyway)
HP Pavilion Desktop PC HP A1700N |
• AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ • 250GB hard drive • LightScribe-enabled | • 1GB of DDR2 memory • Burns DVDs and CDs • Windows Vista Home Premium |
Just one more thing. Assume from prior posts that you have some technical knowledge, probably more than I do, but I always like to help people when I've made mistakes. When I bought my laptop I didn't realize that most printers do not come with the cables any more. So of course I didn't want to wait and drove to Office Max up the road and spent around $29 for a USB cable. I've seen them online for a few bucks. Amazon has Belkin cables for around $8. You might already have them, but I thought I'd mention it.