Hmm.. IBM hasn't made Thinkpads in years. They sold out to Lenovo.

As far as manufacturers..
HP bought Compaq
Acer bought Gateway

I've had some hit-or-miss Acers. Most the Gateways I've had were good (currently on a Gateway AMD Phenom II x4). My last computer was an Acer Aspire m1610 (intel dual-core E2180@2.6ghz/2gb) which has been handed down to my mom. She's thrilled with it, after upgrading from a 2004 Dell Dimension 4500

As far as processors..
The Intel i3/i5/i7 processors are the current top of the line. The Core2Duo / Core2Quad are a couple years older.. and cheap, but still pretty darn awesome. AMD CPU's are on par with the C2D's, and a little cheaper.

Windows 7 needs about 2gb of RAM. It's a heck of a lot better than Vista.

Dell has always been the safe bet. But you pay for that kind of name recognition and reliability.

Basically.. I tell people to check NewEgg or TigerDirect and find something in their price range they like. Add in a $50 graphics card, and you get an awesome system cheap. Some people are just thrilled with the built-in memory card readers in the tower.

I agree with the HP/Compaq laptops just not physically standing up to crap. I have a Sony Vaio that has been pretty good to me so far. Same with Acer laptops.. they develop pesky motherboard issues that are terrible to fix.

So.. figure about $300-$400 for a decent tower, then $100-$150 for a nice 22" flat screen LCD. Maybe another $50 for a video card.

Also.. consider the HDMI video out. You can use an HDTV for a huge monitor if you want. A Couple of my friends do that for a 2nd monitor setup. I just plug my laptop into the HDTV to watch movies or let the kids play Angry Birds.

 

yeah, after browsing around, I'm gonna +1 this system

Acer AM3910-U4012 Desktop PC - Intel Core i3-550 3.2GHz, 6GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, Supermulti 16x DVDRW, Wireless 802.11 b/g/n, Multi-in-1 Meadia Reader, Intel HD Graphics Tech, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit at TigerDirect.com

I'd buy it

 

just buy the cheapest one, it will still run all the programs you listed.

You should build a budget gaming computer if you like to play games. I built mine for less than $650, and yet she can handle any game on the market on high to max settings.

Go check out Newegg.com for all your needs.

 

yep the cheaper the better $300 sounds good, but at the same time i don't want to go so cheap that it only last a couple years.

i've had both a desktop and a laptop before. I really don't care either way. Whichever I can get the best bang for my buck.

thanks for all the replies.