Stephen,
we have a Micromass QTOF2 for about 9 month and are quite happy with it.
When we have to decide which machine to take, I learned that the QTOF2
has a little bit better performance compared to the QSTAR (when
comparing the specifications) but they are comparable. As mentioned
already by Ulrich Schneider, the weak point for the QSTAR is the
software. So, if you are going towards automation of your sequencing
(what you sooner or later will be, even if you are not interested in
'proteomics') you have, at the moment, only the chance to buy the QTOF2.
It is not the automatic sequencing programm they offer (MassSeq) but the
automatic charge state recognition which allows you to let the machine
alone picking and fragmenting peptides and collecting data.
Applied Biosystems promised (us) to have a similar software running in
April - 2000! As far as I know, it is not ready yet (March 2001).
To make a long story short, the hardware is quite comparable but
Micromass is by no doubt leading on the sofware side.
Markus
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