Government and Education departments worldwide now lease computers, usually only over periods of 1-3 years, and only lease very high quality PC's and laptops so they know they will last.
Not only this, but IT Professionals within these departments look after the product, so at the end of the lease they can get top dollar back for them so they can use that buying power to lease newer models.
If you're looking at purchasing a computer or laptop for:
Ex-Government computers over the next few years will still have Windows XP Home or Professional, and will have enough speed to do what most people want to do. XP is a very stable operating system, and Vista really doesn't offer that much more in functionality.
For the average person, the uses outlined above is all they want to do. In an Ex-Government laptop for instance, anything from $600 - $1000 will do that and more, and will include the capability to play DVD's and burn CD's, as well as being only 1-3 years old. Once leased for $1800-$5000, they have very high speed processing (you're only one step behind in technology after all), and generally a hard drive size of 40GB right up to 120GB which is also plenty unless you download alot of music or video.
Step3
Now that Microsoft have released Windows Vista (which requires a very high spec computer to run it), there are all sorts of cheap new laptops on the market which don't cut the mustard. For instance, Vista requires at least 1024MB of memory to operate at even the slightest consistency. Any laptop below $1400 or PC below $1200 generally won't have anywhere near the power required.
So why buy a cheap new one (which are generally throw away items after 12 months due to the cheap componentry in them!) when you can save money and the pain of having to shop for another one by then, by buying a higher quality unit for the same price!
Novice 
