Here's my long winded opinion. I have a five year old Dell Inspiron 4000 that is a 1.3 gHz Pentium 4 (older processor) with 512MB of memory. I don't play games or much streaming video but do just about everything else with this computer, including software development, and it works just fine for me. I think most people just have to have the latest and end up overbuying for their needs. You can easily pay double to get an extra 20-30% in performance, so there is definitely a sweet spot of price/performance. What I'd recommend first is to get a name brand machine that has decent support - Dell, HP/Compaq, Lenovo, etc. You probably don't need a dual-core processor. I'd recommend a processor the 1.5-1.8 gHz range. AMD or Intel will work, AMD is a bit less expensive but Intel tends to be a bit more compatible. Don't spend a bunch extra for fancy video but do get a nice display. Get at least 512MB of memory, I'd recommend 1GB if you can swing it. Maybe an 80 gig hard drive. Are you on dial-up? You'll need a built-in modem or at least a real serial port (harder to find on notebooks these days). Here's the wildcard - the new Microsoft OS called Vista is imminent and it will require more processor power, more video, better video, etc. Do you need it? My opinion is no, it will be a few years before it takes over the market. I'm still using Windows 2000 and it works just fine. You can spend a lot more to run Vista now and my opinion is five years from now you might end up buying a new machine all over again anyway.

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