Working at home has its perks: Your commuting time drops dramatically, and every day is casual Friday. But whether you're running a home business or telecommuting, your home office will be a success only if you take your equipment seriously.
Desktop PCs. If you don't need to take your work with you, a desktop will do. One top machine for the money is the Dell Dimension E521 with enhanced multimedia ($659). A 19-inch flat-panel monitor accompanies a comfortable keyboard and an optical mouse. This quiet-running system has a gigabyte of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. A dual-core AMD processor enhances the Dimension's speed for multitasking. Windows Vista Home Premium gives you Media Center capabilities, such as editing home movies and connecting your PC to a TV.
Another top pick is the Apple iMac 20-inch ($1,499). It's compact but packed with features. A speedy 2.16-gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor is included — which means you can run either the Mac OS X operating system or Windows — along with a gigabyte of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. To run Windows XP or Vista, you'll need to buy your own copy and download a free program called Boot Camp from Apple's Web site.
Laptops. Our top pick is the Apple MacBook Pro ($1,999), with a speedy, 2.2-GHz Core 2 Duo processor. Like the Apple iMac, it can run Windows if you download Boot Camp. The base price includes 2GB of RAM and a 120GB hard drive. The MacBook Pro is lightweight — less than 6 pounds — and has a 15.4-inch wide-screen display.
On the PC side, a good (and inexpensive) choice is the Dell Inspiron E1505 (starting at $699). A 15.4-inch wide-screen display and 1GB of RAM come standard, and upping the hard drive from 80GB to 120GB costs $55.
Multifunction machines. These all-in-ones save space in a home office. Three-in-one machines typically include an inkjet printer, a scanner and a copier; four-in-ones add a fax machine. Make sure your all-in-one has a flatbed scanner, so you can scan photos and pages from books or magazines.
A good three-in-one choice is the Canon Pixma MP600 ($180). This printer/scanner/copier combo can handle high-resolution photo printing. Its 2.5-inch screen shows images in high definition before printing, and you can print directly from memory cards, digital cameras and camera phones. The MP600 can make up to 30 copies per minute, and it can print and copy two-sided documents. Canon's Pixma MP830 ($280) is also a good buy. It has many features of the MP600, plus a fax.