I am thinking about getting a new Dell XPS 420 desktop PC. Some things I have to decide on are giving me fits.
Let me say that I never play games on my PC, so I want a machine that can handle primarily my Excel exploits and the glutonous requirements of Vista. Dell doesn?t offer Wiindows XP on its XPS line of PCs. (sigh)

1) The latest fad in monitors is the wide screen flat panel. I currently have a 19? flat panel that I like a lot. It?s an analog, and that seems OK for what I do. I don?t think I need to pay more for a digital version. The wide screen is what I?m struggling with. I don?t know how to compare a 19? regular width with a, say, 22? wide screen. The 22? is the diagonal measurement, but I don?t know whether a 22? will be more than I really need. Will it appear to be about the same as the 19?, only wider? Or will it be noticeably larger in the vertical dimension too? What size wide screen will appear pretty much like a regular 19?, except that it is wider??

2) I?m sold on getting at least a 3GB memory. My question is, would it serve any purpose to increase that to 4GB?? From what I can tell, going to 4GB starts using a lot of juice from the power supply.

3) One reason I?m getting a new PC is that I?ve exceeded what my present PC and Excel (2003??) can handle without problems. I have a lot of graphics and a LOT of formulas in my workbooks. This time I want to get a good graphics system on the new PC, but I don?t want to overdo it. It costs a lot to get the top-of-the-line video card, but there are a bunch of intermediate video cards to choose from. Question: which one? I want a card that has all the on-board memory (no shared memory) that it needs, but not more than I need (whatever that is). Is there a clear distinction between video card brands?

If you haven?t looked at what Dell is selling these days, you might find it interesting to ramble around their web site for an education. People who are buying the XPS 420 seem to like it. The big problem is Vista. Almost no one likes Vista. If you have any comments, I?d love to see them.

Sid