At the risk of wandering into GTKY territory, I have to register my support for the humble Speccy.

As well as being cheaper than the C64 for most of its life, the ZX Spectrum also was first to market. The humble 16K model could be upgraded to 48K, which was generally considered to be the 'baseline' machine (that most of the games were written for). Unfortunately, most games were effectively monochrome affairs with limited use of the full palette (although I can still remember some eye-popping barbarian game that used cleverly designed sprites to cram all the colours on screen with no discernable attribute clash). To program the Speccy you really had to be quite skillful.

There are some other elements that the Spectrum had and the C64 lacked however:

  • Community, for want of a better word: The Speccy had the best games mag of all time, Your Sinclair, which spent less and less time concerning itself with Speccy games (because, let's face it, most were crap) and developed its own little cult following. Readers sent in their nifty programs (such as fast tape loaders, and routines to draw a circle more quickly), cartoons, and generally partook in lots of off-topic wibble.
  • Ultimate Play The Game: The Speccy was the native territory of super-geniuses Ultimate (who went on to form Rare, makers of numerous popular Nintendo titles). They stunned the world with their revolutionary isometric graphics system and fiendishly playable arcade adventures.
  • It did have some applications: There were all kinds of 'hobbyist' applications and wierd bits of hardware you could bolt onto the Spectrum. Like a robot arm. And a light pen. And many "Game Genie"-like devices.
  • Last but not least, it was English (dons Union Jack underpants and hums national anthem). It was, in fact, the last decent piece of hardware ever to come out of this country, before our international reputation was annihilated by Amstrad.
In defence of the C64, it did have those nifty games you could play while waiting for the 'main attraction' to load. But on the other hand, it was beige.