If you can buy it today, it is already obsolete. There will always be a new model with more bells and whistles about to be released. Define your current needs and buy for them. If the machine you are considering will accomplish what you need today within the context of the hypermedia workstation model below, it is probably worth buying today. It is almost always easier to upgrade existing equipment than to try to predict the future of computing.
Nothing is perfect.
Don't have different expectations of computer-based materials than you do of printed materials. Having stated the above, let us now turn to a more serious examination of the issues. One of the most useful and rewarding offerings of any language laboratory is that of live foreign language television. Whether shown in the laboratory, language classroom building or campus wide, the impact of this programming has been well noted in pedagogical literature over the last decade. System hardware costs have decreased over 70 percent since I installed my first C-band system in 1984.