The only difference between home and pro is networking features. If it is between home and media center I would actually pick media center since it is made more for media use.
If looking at dell I would really recomend getting complete care accidental damage warrenty. I used to work for Dell and the accidental coverage is a great thing to have it you will be taking your laptop into bars or moving it around a lot. What it covers is drop, spills and power surges. Some "drunk?" lol spills their beer and it goes all over your laptop and poof it goes up in smoke...you would get a laptop back free. Say it happens like 3 years from now and you have 3 years on the laptop and say they no longer carry that type of laptop anymore you get the band new model that is closest to what you had.
Dell has the BEST of warrenties and I cringe on anyone that goes to Best Buy or Walmart and picks up a comcrap hp computer. I also recomend add that extra $10 dollars and get the Windows install CD so that you have a windows CD along with your computer
I no longer work with Dell but while working for them I have learned the difference of getting what you want and need over getting something off a shelf or from someone that does not know what they are selling you.
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New computer
Custom built
Windows XP Pro
Hopefully Hoster 3.316
AMD Athalon 64 X2 4400+ 2.3ghz
ASUS M2A-VM Motherboard
2 - 1GB DDR2 800mhz Corsair RAM
1 - 500 GB SATA Western Digital HD
1 - 160 GB external HD
ATI Radeon Sapphire X1650 Pro Video Card 512MB
Realtek HD Audio
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