I actually almost religiously avoided mass produced PCs from the big companies (Dell, Gateway, HP, etc) for many years, always choosing to build my own. But finally I succumbed and bought the last 2 from Dell for simplicity, and lack of spare time to research , shop for parts and build a new machine. I have had absolutely nothing to complain about with either machine.

On the price thing - somebody mentioned cheapo desktops in another ticket, and it came to light there are desktops now from Walmart starting at $199. $278 gets 1Gb RAM, DVD-RW and Vista bundled (not that I personally would want Vista, but still). Prices are really extraordinary in the USA. I don't think you could find something similar here in Australia for less than $700AU, (say $600US).