I have been using a Dell Inspiron 6000 with out any goodies since I graduated high school in 04'. It had 1200x800 res, no graphics, no wifi, 40GB HDD, 1.3 Celeron, Windows XP and the battery hasn't been any good for about 2 years. So essentially I was using a laptop without a battery like a desktop. I finally decided to get a decent upgrade. To replace the portability of the laptop I went out and bought an Asus 1001-P (netbook).
And for the power end of the spectrum I bought an Acer Aspire M3800. It was a refurb from Micro Center (local PC mega store) and sold for $320 or so. For me it's biggest selling points were the DDR3 memory, gigabit ethernet and price. And because I wanted to eventually use 3 monitors I went out and got a Zotec GeForce 9400GT 512MB. I could of went for a better card but I didn't want to upgrade my 300w power supply. So all in all I spent $400 for the PC and card.
It was nice upgrading my first PC. Way better then upgrading netbooks and laptops... so much more room! Also because the Acer's mobo has a 775 socket, I can upgrade as I need all the way up to a Q9550S with out needing to change my power supply. I can also upgrade to 2x 4GB DDR3 on top of the 2x 2GB sticks. Or I can keep the processor, keep 2GBs of ram, transfer any goodies to a new machine I am building and use the Acer as a home theater PC.
My first desktop purchase required my first monitor purchase. I went with the ASUS VH236HL-P 23". I got it for $200 shipped to my door. The screen is absolutely beautiful. It out shines my plasma by a mile. I turned down the brightness just so when both were on, the monitor doesn't look that much brighter than the plasma.
Unfortunately the the height adjustment for the monitor didn't go low enough to clear the 42" tv on my desk currently, so I eventually made a piece of furniture to lift the TV over the monitor so now both can be in use at the same time. NICO, I need furniture help...
Finished product:
