jam13 - 8:45 pm on Oct 31, 2004 (gmt 0)

For any generic installations I'd agree, for office rollouts where really who cares about the quality of the machines and you're never going to go in them and change stuff, and let them sit as long as they work, I'd agree, for your aunt or grandmother I'd agree, but if you are getting a personal machine, or any type of quality workstation, the numbers simply don't add up.

Exactly.

If I wanted a high spec workstation, games machine or simliar then I would (probably) build it myself. In fact I've never bought an off the shelf machine for _myself_ - I've always built from components.

However most people (including me) don't _need_ high performance workstations - they need a reliable workhorse PC for running standard office applications.

Don't get me wrong - It's not that I _like_ Dell, or their systems very much, in fact I spent years trying to persuade myself that I was saving money by building from components. But now I've seen the light and realised that I've got better things to do with my time :)