>Some are below $500. Some have Windows 2000 or Windows XP Pro (maybe 10%). Many have a reasonable amount of memory, say 256K.
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>I might want to upgrade soon and I can't spare a whole lot of money. I don't have many specific needs because it is for home and I don't work at home. If the price is low, I could afford to upgrade again in a year or two and make this one a Christmas present to someone.
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>But I don't want to spend 3/4 the money for 1/2 the hardware. That can happen easily with used computers. Part of what you pay for with a new Dell is the ability to customize, which is not available with the refurbished systems. But that doesn't matter to me if I get a pro operating system and enough memory.

For my money.....$500 is good if you're getting a P4....otherwise I can point you to local vendors who can sell what you specified for $636 with P4 1.7Ghz, 256mb ddr ram, 32 MB video mem, on board 100 lan card and 80GB hard drives....no monitor, keyboard, mouse, windows XP home (add $64 for pro), etc.....