Help choosing a mind-mapping application please

[Londoner]

Hi,

I do alot of research and am constantly drawing up mindmaps, timelines, note tables and etc. I know there's alot of mind-mapping software applications available and I was interested to know if anyone here has any experience with any of them, or could recommend any of them, or could suggest a forum or review arena which I might visit to find out more.

My point o reference is the long listing at wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_mapping ) - some are free source, some have trials; but I don't want to spend the next 6 months testing software.

In case anyone has any knowledge/experience with this kinda stuff I'm looking for something which will give me lots of flexibility (I am used to drawing up on paper so I don't suddenly want a complicated proceedure), something which allows the use of pictures, and preferably something which gives options to look at info in different views such as in a timeline or organise differently.

Thanks for reading.