I think the truth is somewhat in the middle. If you're looking for a budget system (around $500), there's no way you can beat the big guys anymore. Their economies of scale are just too great. If you're looking to build a nicer machine though, you can still generally beat them. I just got a box from Newegg yesterday. Asus P4C800-E, P4 2.6, a couple of SATA's for RAID 0, 2 whole gigs of RAM, and an ATI 9600 XT....all for under a grand. I could have added a nice case, a copy of windows XP, a plextor 8X DVD burner, and a logitech MX cordless duo, and still come in under $1500. After paying tax on the Dell, it would have been close to three grand to get that same type of machine from them.
e-machines have a reputation for being junk. Dell and HP use the same parts you can buy online. There's nothing, if anything, that's proprietary about them.
If you had the time, I would build one if I were you. It's a good way to save quite a bit of money. Just stay away from cheap generic parts. (like power supplies etc.)
go dell all of my computers are from dell, and I never have any problem with them. But it is probably much much more fun if you build one yourself, since nowadays it's so easy to get parts and those cool cases.
My Apple IIe hasn't given me problems yet. I'd stick to the basics, and keep upgrading. (BTW... my Commodore 64's GTA3 is awesome!)
I think Pole is right. The only real problem, if you don't want to do it yourself, is finding someone who will build it for you. A cheap machine - yeah, buy prebuilt. But you actually can build a very nice one for under 1000. Beyond that, I'd probably go Dell. They are the closest to custom built as I can find. Though I'm still a little wary about the ability to upgrade. The last Dell I opened up looked like it made some things easy to upgrade...and other things very difficult. Of course this was a model from a year or two ago. IT could be different now. Or ease of upgrading could not matter to you, I don't know.
Finding someone to build it isnt that hard if you are in Houston.. I still custom build systems for friends and some old clients.. I pretty much got out of that when I switched to networking, but can be convinced to come out of reirement.. I have some more current experience with Dels, and they are much easier to upgrade with off-the-shelf components these days. Like I said earlier, the only compnent not easily replaced is the motherboard..those buggers are customized for their cases. Everything else is fair game.
True. But if you're used to only prebuilt, you might only be likely to give the job to someone you really trust before forking over the grand. But yeah, definitely lots of people would be willing to do it.
