Hello,
I'm pretty new to the microcontroller world, and I'm having trouble choosing between two boards. For reference, I am an experienced C programmer. These are the AVR butterfly and the Arduino Duemillanove. I'm having trouble deciding since I'm on a tight budget (buying from my own pocket money). The Arduino starter pack (from adafruit) plus an LCD brings the cost for the Arduino up to about $84-$85 including shipping. But, for the AVR butterfly, its the board itself, plus the female headers (about $4.50 on Digikey, I can't find them cheaper) and the serial port (about $5.00) and a few LEDs ($1.00) keeps the cost comparatively low at about $37.50. However, the Arduino has lots of tutorials and a large community and a simpler interface.
Do you think that the extra cost is worth it? Is the starter pack over priced? If so, where should I buy from?
If you're after an AVR board + graphical LCD, the butterfly seems hard to beat. The only thing that jumps out at me right away is that the butterfly is RS232 only, whereas the Arduino is USB based. If you have a spare serial port on your computer, then you're good. If you have to buy a USB -> Serial adapter, its another ~$15 or so.
Well you are on the arduino forum so arduino!
Yes, the AVR butterfly is cheaper but there is a lot less support and example code. There are a lot of arduino 'clone' boards such as the seeduino boards which are pretty much the same but cheaper. You can always go with a stripboard arduino to really bring the price down.
Even an experienced programmer can have issues and need help every so often 
There are also libraries and example code for everything for the arduino.
Mowcius
I think I'll go with the Arduino because its very easy to use, because I have the option of programming with either straight avr-gcc code (as with the Avr butterfly) or with the simpler Arduino language. Thank you all very much! (more suggestions still very much welcome, I'm not ordering until another 5 or 6 hours)
I would say start with the arduino itself rather than a kit. It is exceptionally Well made and, assuming you have an A-B usb cable you can have quite a bit of fun with no other parts. When you want leds or such you can probably find them locally.
I bought a butterfly but it's sitting in a drawer after an hour's play with the built-in apps - mostly because of the rs232 needed to reprogram.