[ScottGem]

I tend to discount people's tells of woe for anything, because its usually the complainers you hear from, not the satisfied customers. But, when you hear from so many people and other sources like BBB surveys, its hard to discount them completely. From everything I've heard, Dell's support has gone down the tubes.

[NeedKarma]

I've ordered and installed Dell computers for my wife's business and several of my tech support business' customers. Honestky I can't comment about their tech support 'cause I've never had to call them. That tells you something right there. I would recommend that users uninstall quite a lot of the pre-installed crap that Dell has on their Home Computers.

[ScottGem]

I would suspect the reason you don't have to call them is because you know enough to handle things yourself. Its rare that I call a manufacturer's support line, but when I do, its usually a dilly of a problem.

[Maxine321]

IBM Lenovo ThinkCentre E50 works for me

Processor – Intel P4
RAM – min 512MB
Storage – min 80GB

If you will be doing a lot of burning I suggest you get 160GB SATA HDD; DVD+/-RW Drive.

[Rob]

I would recommend that users uninstall quite a lot of the pre-installed crap that Dell has on their Home Computers.

Any suggestions for deletion?

[Davidmex]

You could probably buy on of the cheapest computers in the market for about $500 and that would not be a problem just make sure you have 512 in ram as minimum

[NeedKarma]

Any suggestions for deletion?

A guy actually wrote a script to automate it. http://www.yorkspace.com/2006/04/38

Read the comments and his follow-up blog post.

[Tommyp!972]

Rob,
It sounds like you should lean towards a system that comes equipped with Windows XP Media Edition

Has video editing already installed and usually they give you a decent amount of memory due to it being a media edition but if you don't get a MCE then here's a my opinion on the subject

Cpu make and speeds are all decent in this day.. they are all fast enough on new systems

But if I were you I'd lean towards the Pentium series of CPU's because they have been known to be better at video editing then AMD

Harddrivewise I wouldn't go anything less than 100GB

Memory I would want no less than 1024MB

If it has integrated video that's fine but a separate video card with video in/outs is much better.. anything to take stress off the CPU will help out a lot

Sound card.. same as video...

video editing/authoring programs

... as for all the junk they install nowadays in bundled systems have a geeky friend(if you're not comfortable)uninstall what you don't need or want

If you do it yourself 1st go to the START--RUN--type in the box MSCONFIG--STARTUP--- and turn everything OFF except a firewall and antivirus and Volume Control panel (if needed) and whatever else you want to start up when the system boots...
Then go to the control panel and uninstall whatever looks like crap

All the major names make a decent system but ask about the warranties and service plans... like others have said.. some are better than others

And for gods sakes don't let the little sale geeks talk you into a system you don't want or need(commision).. I want to beat them all down when I hear them talking BS at the store and the people buy into it

Good luck and like I said.. this was only an opinion