Well, according to most, don’t get Vista! I have no direct experience with Vista (XP here) but have not elected to upgrade for both bugs and Microsoft’s relationship with the Hollywood industry (ie. protection schemes that effect quality video for the user). That alone has dampened all enthusiasm for Vista.
It is also too advanced for todays hardware (not altogether bad) but is also buggy. Too many of the hardware vendors have yet to release working drivers for existing hardware. This is delaying Vista implementation also.
Maybe in a couple of years...not now.
I’m certainly no techie but I know several IT people who all say that Vista is bloated, buggy MS bloatware which (1) will not work with many existing drivers and programs, and (2) does not have nearly the performance that one should expect in 2007. I buy some PCs for my company and we are still buying only XP machines due to really bad reports we keep hearing about people who have Vista.