Don't waste your time with all these BS suggestions (albeit well meaning) for a do it yourself computer. If you want to keep your friend happy, suggest she buy a Dell or HP for around $500. It will work, have a meaningful warranty, legit OS and support is but a phone call away.
Info from Tom's
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/09/14/bts_sales_2006/
Just because you believe it to be the best suggestion, doesn't make it the best decision. Don't go out of your way to be a complete asshole. If you have a suggestion, make it, and let whoever needs the advice make the final decision.
With that in mind, Dell, HP, Gateway, whatever, also has it's downsides. You are limited to certain hardware choices. You can just as easily buy a legit os copy with your system from newegg. And the os you get from a prebuilt computer will be full of trial software, a true pain to remove it all, wich you can never get rid of it all. So you essentially never get a clean windows install.
Buying from Dell is cheaper? HA! I built a system as close to what mickeddie suggested, and it came up over 1200$. Where does the value come in? Infact this dell system still had a ton of downfalls yet in comparison.
1) Dell uses there own motherboards (I think, if I'm wrong someone correct me on this one) so you never really know what kind of stability, or features it will ultimately have. There are reasons you can't just go out and buy a dell motherboard -_-
2) The videocard is slower, x1300pro was the best videocard that the system could be outfited with (I realise that you could probably call up dell and get them to put a better videocard in, but they will charge you alot more then it's worth)
3) The harddrive is slower. It never specified, but at best it's an 7200rpm 8mb cache sata drive, why not sata2 and 16mb cache?
4) Cheap no-name ram
5) Dell keyboard and speakers, I doubt they will last, or are quality components.
...
Yes, dell, or any computer manufactorer is sometimes better in certain situations, but when your spending 700$ (without os/monitor/speakers) you can do alot better for your money buying piece buy piece, getting quality hardware, and getting exactly what you (or in this case, your friend) wants.
If your wondering this is what that dell build had for hardware.
Dimension E520 Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6300 (1.86GHz, 1066 FSB)
Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Professional with re-installation CD
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs
Keyboard Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse
Monitor 17 inch E177FP Analog Flat Panel
Video Cards 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro
Hard Drives 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
CD or DVD Drive 16x DVD+/-RW Drive
Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Speakers Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr At-Home Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
TOTAL:$1,218.00
VERSUS
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe ($183.00)
Microsoft Windows XP Professional ($139.99)
CORSAIR XMS2 2 x 512MB DDR2 675 ($131.99)
Logitech Black Standard Keyboard ($4.95)
Logitech Optical Mouse Black 3 Buttons 1x Wheel ($12.75)
Acer Black 17" 8ms LCD Monitor ($159.99)
eVGA Geforce 7300GT 256MB ($66.99)
WD Caviar RE 160GB 7200RPM 16MB SATA 3.0Gb/s ($64.99)
LG Black DVD Burner ($28.99)
Integrates Sound ($0.00)
Logitech X-230 32 Watts 2.1 Speakers ($32.99)
Warranty on all hardware is at least one year, up to 5 years.
TOTAL:$826.63