My last 4 computers were Dells--mostly, it's been good for me. Dell now has the option of "no crapware" (based on user comments). In fact, Dell is rather finely configureable--if you get a computer with 512mb ram and run Vista, it's only because you chose to do so! I mean, you can't sue a lawnmower company because you buy a lawnmower and it's not good for cutting hedges. (oh...wait a minute...actually, that was an urban legend anyway).

Dell lately uses commodity parts (e.g. mine has an NVidia motherboard--so if there was a problem getting a new board from Dell, I could just order a new one from NVidia) rather than home-branded parts, so that motherboard issue would never be an issue (except for warranty service of course). Dell's warranty is pretty generous--on the phone it was determined I needed either a motherboard or memory--and they sent a tech to my house to check it out (at no additional cost to me). It turned out to be memory, happily.

Now, one thing--on the phone with tech support, sometimes I get someone who actually knows what he's talking about, other times he badly fails the Turing test (it's like some tech support centers think Searle's "Chinese Box" was a serious proposal for solving problems). I don't know that any other major company is any better in that or not.

My biggest problems with my current computer is I have Vista--and despite patches, upgrades to SP1, etc., Vista, the drivers, the software, etc. still don't always play well together.

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info