Almost every one of these discussions come down to the same simple question.

What do YOU want to accomplish with it?

Hardware or software, the same question. What do YOU want to do with it. The computer that works for Granny Thelma who wants nothing more than dial up AOL so she can email her grandkids on the other side of the country is probably not going to work for me, but what works for me doesn't matter to Granny Thelma.

Graphics programs, word processors, music, accounting..... what do YOU want to do with it? You don't need to buy Photoshop to just look at pictures and occasionally add a caption. That is made for artists. If you write one letter a month, notepad is fine. You just want to PLAY music? Windows Media Player that comes with computer will play all day.

When you get into "I also wanna....." then you start buying software.

A great example is Don's "How do I organize" thread. 25 people have 25 opinions. What works best for Don is the right answer. On another thread, Noel told someone how he creates a folder for every song. For me, I don't want 250 folders. I have a RB Songs folder that has child folders in the parent folder. Same concept, each in it's own folder, but under another folder for cleanliness.

Go with what works for you.