I also have an HP, but my children have a Dell. It happened that when we bought their machine there were some good Dells on sale. After the burglary last year it just seemed easiest to replace computers with like computers, so I got an HP again and they got another Dell. They both work well. Dell has some bundled software (they usually send WordPerfect, which is a very nice word processing program).

I buy my commercial software through an academic contract at the university where I work, so though some of it still expensive (to me) it is a lot less than the full-price versions.

Are you using a cathode ray tube (television) monitor? Once you start using a LCD monitor you won't want to go back, and you're not irradiating yourself every day. So you might want to consider it. 17" is as small as I would go, and you can find sales that bring them down to $200 with rebates. I got a nice ViewSonic for a friend last summer at that price. They're not all alike, so go ask a salesperson about the features, then jump when you see it on sale. Pick the brains of the sales people. Find someone who knows what they're talking about and ask questions.

I bought my HP and it didn't come with a monitor, all it had was the keyboard and mouse. I had to replace everything after the burglary, and was due for a new printer, but sometimes with Dell you can get a printer or monitor free* (the difference is, you pay shipping if they give you something free, but the shipping is usually cheaper if they give you a monitor, it's probably a wash if they give you a printer).

Computers don't come with floppy drives standard much any more, and if you have lots of floppies you might want to install one. It's easy and you can do it yourself. Don't let them hold you hostage for a $15 drive and a $5 cable. You'll also probably have to buy speakers, and you can get a decent set for about $20 these days.

Memory is cheap. You can get a relatively small hard drive in a computer and you can add another hard drive or you can add an external hard drive. They go on sale all of the time. Watch the ads for a while. You can also upgrade the RAM in the computer pretty inexpensively and you can do it yourself. So if you find one that is almost what you want, look around and see what you can tweak yourself to make it better.

I use two monitors, since my old heavy CRT is one thing the burglars didn't take (now I wonder why?). I got a card and have both plugged in. It's pure luxury, not necessity, but sometimes it is nice to spread things out, or to watch a movie on one screen and work on the other. :)

Get lots of plugs for USB2 and Firewire, and if they're in front that's great. Sometimes they come on the monitor or keyboard, though those can't always drive big pieces of equipment.

I hope this helps.

SRS