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Goat-bearded Wall Street Journal gadget sage Walt Mossberg published his annual fall PC buyer's guide today. Great advice, but eight times too long. I've whittled it down to a PowerPoint-friendly bullet list.

Here's what to buy this fall:

  • Prepare to spend at least $800 for a good PC.
  • Any dual-core CPU is fine. Ignore gigahertz ratings.
  • Splurge on Windows Vista Home Premium.
  • 2 gigabytes of RAM, 300 gigabytes of disk. You'll use it.
  • A separate graphics card, not "integrated" graphics.
  • If you can, test the PC's performance live:
  • Run the Vista Welcome Center.
  • Click "Show more details."
  • If the performance rating isn't 3.5 or higher, don't buy.
  • Avoid "craplets" — trial versions of programs that clutter and slow the PC. You can:
  • Buy a business model .
  • Opt out of trial software.
  • Ask store to uninstall all that junk.
  • Mac fanboys: I love you, too. Now go away until MacOS 10.5 ships next week.