I am looking for a New Desktop Computer. What do you have & how do you like it? Computers to Avoid is also helpful in making my mind up. Thanks!

Dell has a good reputation for quality, and they're one of the few manufacturers that still sells computers with XP instead of Vista. That why I bought my last computer from them, and I've been very happy with it.

--Fromper

Dell Computers are good. I like HP as well which is what I have purchased the last couple of times that I have gone looking for computers. HP also sells computers under the Compaq name. You can often find them on sale for reasonably low prices at the big box stores like Best Buy.

I have had no problems with either of those brands and I used to support them both. Both companies offer excellent tech support and have extensive web support sites with all the drivers which is important if down the road you want to upgrade or change the operating system on your computer or if your nephew or niece destroys your operating system by downloading 354 viruses and spyware from that online gaming site which you told them not to visit on your computer.

HP makes it pretty easy to restore the operating system but you have to make the restore disks (which used to come with the system) but it isn't such a big deal to make them.

If you have the skill (or online guide), I'd actually recommend building a computer yourself. Sure, it'll require a bit of work and tweaking, but it'll be cheaper.

That's certainly true. When I bought my pentium IV (over 5 years ago!) I had handpicked the basic parts (CPU, RAM, Graphics Card). The PC ran to satisfaction for almost 4 years, I wanted to extend that to 5 (and 7 as secondary PC) so I made some small upgrades, doubled my RAM and had a new GeForce card inserted.

After buying this PC years ago, I inquired at various other companies (which I knew could never be cheaper) how much my PC would have cost me had I bought and assembled it there. Turns out I had come out a little over 50% cheaper than the cheapest of these companies.

Due to some negative experiences of a fair number of my friends, I have one other guideline when it comes to computers. I don't do Dell.

I like my Dell. I got it used, and old at that, but it performs well, and it has taken a beating (even took a fall once), and it still keeps going.

I built my previous computer (a Pentium III) from a motherboard that I bought for $15 on eBay, a case that I already had on my shelf that cost me $20 and a hard drive, a DVD burnaer and RAM that I had sitting on my shelf so I was only out of pocket $15. I also had software from Microsoft that allowed me to install up to 10 instances of XP on my internal computers. Alas a burglar stole it about three years after I built it but it worked fine before it disappeared. The burglar sold it to someone who never did manage to get it working (I found out later - no password and NTFS). I did recover the hard drive.

Frankly I am not sure that it would be cheaper to build a (legal) system yourself these days unless you went with a Linux operating system. I can walk into the big box stores like Future Shop or Best Buy and find a new open box system for as little as $320 (or as little as $350 if I want a closed box) with a couple of megs of RAM, a Lightscribe DVD burner, and a warranty and an operating system (Windows Vista). I'm not sure that I could build an equivalent system from scratch with equivalent hardware and software. Legal copies of Vista OEM or XP Pro OEM run about $130 by themselves around here.

Off lease computers can be had for about $200 or less with the operating system still on them (not sure about the legality of this).

Let me guess... Exploding capacitors?

One of my employers had to replace a lot of motherboards for that reason. Occasionally the tech support guys would try to pretend like it wasn't happening but we weren't born yesterday. I have found that once you got past the 1-800 guys that Dell did a good job of replacing components that went bad with fairly quick on site service.

Well, used computers are always cheaper, but if you don't trust used computers/used parts, the best way would still be to make it from scratch. Another bonus that you can overclock, but that's not really useful for an average user.

$350 at a regular store won't get you much. 1 gb, 2.0GHz, and cheap ATI express graphics card at best.

and IMO Dell isn't too bad when it comes to desktops. However, their Vostro series aren't that great, and Inspirons are just worthless.

Thanks for the info.