Hobbyist looking for advice on buying new computer that can be used as a miner

Hi,

out of pure interest of cryptocurrencies and love for freedom I'm very interested in becoming a more active part of the community by mining.
I've played around a little just using a CPU-miner in my age old computer but now I want something a little better.

Here is the premises:

1) I'm not looking to mine a specific coin for a long, but I want a computer that can possible mine a new coin that I find good regardless of what hashing algorithm it uses.

2) The total cost can not exceed 1500$

3) I'm not looking to make a profit, but rather have a useful computer that can also be used for every day usage

So my question is:

With these premises in mind, what should I look for in a computer? Can you point me in the right direction

Please correct me if I ask the question wrong, or are just on the wrong path.