It really does come down to the purpose of the machine. Like Steve said we are human and tend to salivate over all the bells and whistles however what we should be looking at is what will get us through the next two or so years based on usage needs. I was in this situation two years ago when I changed jobs but decided to contract with my previous employer. I was really iffy doing programming/database development over a VPN connection using a laptop but everything has worked out great. I ended up with a Dell Dimension dual core with 2GB ram on XP. The laptop outlasted the PC I VPN into. I guess I'll hold on to this laptop a little while longer.