I always build my own systems anyway, but frankly I don't even bother to try to compete with the likes of Dell on cost. If you just want a PC that works, there's nothing wrong with them. As for the argument that troubleshooting is easy and "all you need is another PC to keep swapping bits into", do you think most people even have that let alone the will to do it? Reminds me of when the motherboard I had didn't work with the graphics card I chose many years ago, neither company who sold me said parts was willing to admit their part was at fault, I ended up paying "testing fees" to both companies and in the end ditching an otherwise perfectly good motherboard. Granted this situation is unusual but it does happen.Umm, no. Branded computers are made of generic (meaning mostly crap) parts. the guarantee/warranty is on the whole. it has more to do with ease of putting together and selling for the company, ease of people who dont know how to properly use a computer. alienware and stuff like that are too expensive for the kind of performance they offer.
Sometimes if you just need a PC to get work done, buying pre-built has some serious advantages. I've also seen Dell workstations still going strong 10+ years after purchase, so the components can't be that "mostly crap".
That's complete nonsense if you're a power user. No tablet will come close to my 3 monitor setup for web browsing, social networking, forum posting etc. For the average joe a tablet is enough, sure, but even simple tasks like copy/pasting a bunch of e-mail addresses from a webpage is a bind in iOS. It all depends how you use your system as to what suits you best really.I stress that computers for anything but serious work are an obsolete concept. Buy a tablet if all you do is surf the web, do social stuff and read emails.
