[lovekeiiy]

I'm have mixed bag feelings about Dell/Alienware. I think they build solid machines for the most part. No proprietary parts; HP use to do this in the past, not sure if they still do. I have Alienware laptop, desktop, and 20" widescreen LCD monitor.

I had a lot of "fun" with Alienware in getting my computers. Granted I order them during Christmas, and took me about a month to the desktop and around two and half to get the laptop. The desktop ran fine; although it did freeze playing DVDs using MCE. The laptop is a gaming laptop, or as I call it, a desktop in a portable case. It run like a turd, one of the cooling fans on the bottom rubbed the case. I formatted the HDD, and computer has been running well ever since. So, needless to say, they just put a HDD image on the computer that they though would optimize the performance.

The monitor was goofy. Somehow they lost my order. Ironically enough, it was to my benefit because it was on sale when I reorder it, LOL.

One nice thing Alienware did, that is not common anymore, last I saw, was send an actual OS disc. The disc looked like the normal HDD image/recovery disc, but was an OS disc. I really hate HDD image recovery disc because if the system isn't running out the box well, it will have the same problems just like the first time you turned it on; never mind the issues that come from having changed the some of the hardware. Also, windows OS disc can be boot disc; these are appreciated if you have a HDD crash. Recovery disc don't work.

I can't really comment on the the budget systems, since that is not what I order. I order computers to last me five years without having to do any major upgrades; I don't game much on the PC, but I buy gaming PC since they have most up to date hardware with the latest technology. And for that, they're a good price.