It's time for a new computer. We've had this one since 1997, with a couple upgrades mixed in. What company do you guys recommend?

My wife gets a discount on Hewlett Packard and Dell. We may also have our son-in-law build one for us.

Any info would be great.

Falcon

If you can have one built and they know what they are building i would recommend going that rout. If not Get a Dell I use their Laptops and they have great warranties and customer service / Tech support.

Don't get a Gateway ... Its the Gateway to HELL!

I agree with the gateway statement. I would recommend HP or Dell. Building a computer can become expensive, sometimes costing even more than a computer from HP or Dell. It is also a lot of work to build your own computer.

IF you have to buy production, Dell is ok, HP is junk, crap components. If your son has worked on PC's, he can build one. Took me 2 hours to build my first one 28 years ago. If someone knows what they're doing, it's together in under an hour with quality, performance oriented components.

Mac... problems solved.

If you can have one built and they know what they are building i would recommend going that rout. If not Get a Dell I use their Laptops and they have great warranties and customer service / Tech support.

Don't get a Gateway ... Its the Gateway to HELL!

I agree with all the above statements. We use Dell. We have 3 Dell, a desk top and 2 lap top. Have great service with Dell for the last 7 years.

We have 3 laptops ....2 Dells that we use everyday ..... 1 HP which is JUNK and stays in the case ..... it's full of pics we need to try to receive otherwise it would be in the landfill.

I have a Dell and had an issu----the customer service sucked!!!   I was on the phone for over an hour with "Bill" from India, I ended up hanging up the phone and fixed the problem myself.  Luckily with Dell the problems are few and far between so you don't have to call Cust. Service too often.

I would also go with Dell.  I've always had Dells, and always used them at work, with really no complaints.  And the customer service is good; they're out of Austin, Texas, and I'm pretty sure that is where their call center is.  I know quite a few people who worked there.

Get a Dell....Stay away from HP! My last computer was a HP and i hated that thing.

I got a Dell now and haven't looked back yet.2 years and it's running strong.

I hear Macs are nice..but honestly...i never used one so i don't know much about them.  

Dell at work and home.

I have an Alienware desktop specifically built for image editing.  I have a Dell lattitude D810 for location shoots, and shooting tethered for portraits and commercial photography.  At my day job, I use another D810 and a Precision 870 with dual Xeons for developing and compiling code.

Personally, if all I did was music, a few digital snaps, surf, email,  and watching videos, I'd get an Imac.

If sticking to Windows suits you, you really can't go wrong with a Dell system in the $1200-1500 range.  Get as much RAM and disk storage as you can afford.

I have a Dell and had an issu----the customer service sucked!!! I was on the phone for over an hour with "Bill" from India, I ended up hanging up the phone and fixed the problem myself. Luckily with Dell the problems are few and far between so you don't have to call Cust. Service too often.

I must be the exception to this rule.  I have a Dell XPS laptop, bought it in January 2008, to this date, I have had to restore it to factory settings AT LEAST 9 times, replaced the HD and memory once, and now they are telling me that instead of restoring to factory settings, I should completely reformat it.  I never call tech support, I always use the chat service, it eliminates the spoken accent of the person I am "talking" with so it is easier to understand.

All that being said, my next computer will be a Mac, no doubt, hands down.

Dell. With my waranty I could throw mine out of the window and have a replacement at my door in a matter of days. A guy I lived with last year got really drunk and peed all over his and had it replaced. My girl has an HP and the keys are falling off and its extremely noisey. She has to turn it off to sleep. If I were in the market for a new computer though, I'd honestly get a Macbook Pro.

Macs are the best.  Nothing is better.

I have Dell because #1 son says to use a Dell as he is a computer geek and he refuses to help me with my Macintosh.

So I have Dell computers at the home and office.  

I had my last one built by a computer store. It may cost a little more but there are some advantages.

1. ALL of the software you have installed on the system is yours and they should give you the CD with the software on it.

2. You can ask them to build the system with specific components.

3. The PC will come with only the software you have asked for.

I would also go with Dell. I've always had Dells, and always used them at work, with really no complaints. And the customer service is good; they're out of Austin, Texas, and I'm pretty sure that is where their call center is. I know quite a few people who worked there.

They may have moved since I called, but the "Bill" that I spoke to was NOT in Austin. I could also hear the other employees on the phone, and they didn't sound like they were from Austin either, unless Austin is next to Mumbai, India!!!

Here's a picture of "Bill"

I have a Gateway desktop, a Tiger Direct desktop, a HP desktop, and a Toshiba laptop. Before I retired, I had a company provided IBM laptop. No problems with any of them.

I vote for Dell.

id build a system. heres the best reason why: the system will be windows Xp.

depending on the tower you have 99% of the time its cheaper to use your old tower and rebuild on it.

I've put together several and tuned up a lot of my friends machines, several of which were Dells. They make those machines with mini motherboards (mainboards) that have very little in the way of expansion capabilities. You can't buy the bottom line one and add to it.

However, since you're replacing one that was purchased in 1997, then I'll assume you have NO plans to add to this machine in the next year or two. If so, then buy a Dell and get the most you can afford.

Focus on getting alot of system memory (RAM) at least 4 GB, get XP installed (DEMAND this unless you've used Vista and actually like it ), a pretty good video card (512 MB) dual core or quad core processor and about 500 GB Hard Drive. Also, get the biggest monitor (LCD) that you can afford. You want a fast response time for the monitor as well; like 2 milliseconds.

I got a Dell xps M1530 for school. It great laptop and I really like it.

I pay about 1700.00 for mine, but I had some extra features added onto it. Extra rams, some extra softwares, et cetera.

I'm another that says as long as you know what your doing, build your own. Yes, it can cost more but you can add only quality components.

sony vaio