- play Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 on it, to the end, with no performance degradation.
- write DVD's
- develop and debug applications using ASP.NET and Visual Studio.NET, with SQL Server 2000.
- develop J2EE applications, if I ever need to.
- connect to an Ethernet network, the internet, and to a printer
- run MS Office 2000
- use my USB-Bluetooth adapter
I don't have the time to browse technical websites looking for benchmarks, and I don't trust any of the computer dealers in my town - they all seem to be small-time crooks.
Buying from a big chain store is not an option, because specialize in selling overpriced and under-powered computers.
I will probably get my computer from a friend-of-a friend, or a colleague who has an account with a computer wholesaler, and who will make a small profit for their trouble, but I will still probably have to give them the specifications for the system that I want. The wholesalers' price lists, although password-protected, are not too difficult to obtain, so I will be able to see if I'm being ripped off.
This is less than ideal, and if someone developed an application that let me input functional specifications like those above, produced a detailed technical quote, broken down by component, and allowed one to compare prices from different suppliers, they would remove the guesswork from computer buying, and, I think, have a killer app.
