i'll be in the same market in a month or two - my fiancee (will move to "wife" status on saturday - w00t!) and i need to get a bike for her so that she can hit the trails w/ me on the weekends. i have a '99 rockhopper A1 FS comp and an old '92 rockhopper expert "beater" bike - she tried the old rockhopper and the top tube was way too short for her, so we haven't been riding together since then. just need to get one w/ the right geometry for her - we'll have to test-ride a bunch to see what she's most comfortable on.
for whatever reason i'm partial to specialized, but i can't say that i'm biased against anything...it seems to me that giants have a lot of bang for the buck, so when i bought a road bike a couple years ago i picked up an '02 giant TCR1 at an end-of-the-year clearance sale at my local shop. the component level on the giant bikes was consistently a level up from the competing specialized and cannondale offerings, and i liked the fit of the giant - so i bought it over the specialized allez comp i was also considering.
a quick visit to the bike shop last fall seemed to show that the giant mtn. bikes were set up similarly - a tad better component set than the competition at their price point. the ~$500-600 level giant also had disk brakes, whereas the specialized did not...though for our use we certainly don't have to have disks.
so, all that to say - i'd look at giant's offerings in your price range. might be a pretty good value for the money....
