Community poll forum: If you use a desktop, who is the manufacturer?

I recently had a pc built by PC Club. I ordered an Intel 3.2 processor with hyperthreading, media center, gigabyte motherboard, a gig of memory; the works. I did this because I got tired of all the proprietory crap that the manufactors like HP and Compaq put on their pc's. I have always enjoyed a straight-forward type of machine and now I have what I want without all commercial junk stuffed into my computer. I am absolutley thrilled with it and have enjoyed trouble-free, commercial-free computing since June of this year.

I like new challenges. My first was a AMD K6-400 Mhz system, nice for a beginner. My second system(which I still use as a Autocad workstation) is an AMD Athlon 1.8 Ghz (notice a pattern here?). My current system is an AMD AthlonXP 2.5 Ghz processor, 1 Gb of Crucial DDR 400 RAM, a nice,fast video card, a 48x CD burner,which I want to upgrade to a dual layer DVD burner soon, and a 160 GB hard disk. Whatever problems,and most of them have been minor,except for a bad hard disk which failed inside 6 months, I have fixed myself. If I had bought "off the shelf" systems, I probably would have paid double the amount of what I have in the parts.

I am the proud owner of an NEC computer which I obtained as replacement for a Compaq computer that had been giving me fits.The computer is about 7 years old and still functioning very well with the smallest incidence of any problems.I think that NEC quit building computers shortly after I obtained mine too bad.

I bought a no-name desktop fully loaded from ShopNBC on-line over 1 year ago.NO PROBLEMS with it,except (AOL
free 6 month)A quick fix I just uninstalled AOL upon Arrival since I have a better ISP Not as Expensive as AOL BUT MUCH BETTER.
Dell has to make up for Its low cost giveaways to Big buisness giving the imoression that IF Big Bis uses it it must be the best

Falcon NorthWest had been awesome. I ordered my computer in 2002, one of their basic "Talon" series. And it has performed perfectly. It has always been able to do cutting edge stuff. I just installed a new GeForce video card (Nvida GeForce 6800) because I wanted an upgrade. Easy to do. Though the installed video card was still running perfectly.

And tech support or assistance I needed, Falcon-NW has been right there, with advice, help, and service. My next computer will be a Falcon-NW.

Vincent Theel

I could see everything I wanted without leaving my chair and Dell was highly recommended by son and daughter-in-law who both have one.

I have used many computers at my old Job. I am retired now from the Army Corps of Engrs.
I have used Dell, Compaq and Gateway.
I purchased a Gateway desktop for my home in Xmas 1999 and I have upgraded the CD-Rom, Memory and the operating system.
I do love my Gateway and I am thinking about purchasing another one next year.
This computer keeps going and going. It is the computer that 3 family member uses all the time and It get beat-up all the time.
I only had two problems with it in all this time.

So, You Know I Love MY Gateway.
Butter

I am a gamer and AV hobbyist on an extreme budget.
Here are my specs
2.53GHz Intel Celeron D
512MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM
Dual 80GB Hard Drives
16x Lite-On DL DVD Burner
Floppy Drive
128MB Geforce FX 5200 8x AGP
Sound Blaster Audiopci
Windows 2000 Professional
Eight USB 2.0 Ports (6 in back, 2 in front)
ASROCK P4V88+ ATX Motherboard
Apex PC-115 Mid tower case
I had half of the parts here already so the cost that I Paid for a motherboard, Case, DVD Burner, and USB 2.0 Video Capture device was $147 excluding shipping. I bought everything from newegg which has the best prices around!

I do computer repair for a living-over 30 years! These are my personal observations. I have seen a company who advertises pc's ''built for lacal conditions'' I have come across some of these machines and i would not recommend them =- cheap boards and pci cards, some unbranded. On their adv. thay show a ''tech.'' with a mobo putting an oscilloscope probe to it? with a soldering iron close by!! caption '' we do all repairs in house'' this is the downside of custom built.
I also see ''brand name' systems bought from department stores etc. Some of these have low cost low-end cpus often have non industy standard PSU's and WinXP with only 256 meg of ram! I often get called to these machines when thay are a few weeks old, first thing they need is a ram upgrade preferably to 1 gig. By the time they call me every one in the family has their own account and pasword all have loaded whatever they fancy on the system and it runs like a dead dog! Now if you can purchase a custom built from someone you can trust- best hardware for the dollar, ram and cpu to match the reason the system is needed - eg basic word proccessing or high end graphics and sound etc. also if the end user is a newby, secuity software requirements need to be carefully considered and understood, I have seen some great systems along these lines and it has not cost the user an arm and a leg.
My system
AMD 3200+, GA-7N400 mobo, 1 gig 3200 dual channel ram, MSI nvidia Gforce4 mx4000 128 gig video, win xp pro, dvd combo r/w, winfast tv card. 80 gig seagate 7200 h/d, dlink 4 port dsl router. Because I earn my living with computers I also run a Win 98 system.

I bought my Gateway because of location to service center, warranty, friendly staff, and I got wat I wanted. 3 yr. warranty was great for novice (first time user/buyer), plus they had classes on how to. All my questions were answered over two week period and staff was happy (or appeared to be) to help me understand what I really wanted. I had my computer ordered and was delivered with in 3 days. I do have issues though.

I like the fact that I can get most of the processing capacity of a minitower in a case the size of a large toaster. I can pick it up and take it anywhere without the carrying straps required for minitowers and larger. Downside is only two expansion slots, but that is enough for me.

First one in late '99. I convinced my parents I needed a souped up system for college.

another in '03/04 as a graduation gift.

Both cases they didn't trust me to put together my own system, so i figured a free Dell was better than nothing.

Now I'm making my own $$. Don't know if i can "con" them into another free PC. Perhaps as a wedding gift ?

The companies that you list are assemblers, not manufacturers.
HP and IBM are the only ones that make hardware. IBM makes the PPC chips for the Sony Playstation3. The question is false and misleading.