People think, that because some of the parts are custom made by DELL, and hard or expensive to replace, they are all crap. I think they are really good though, cheap and reliable..
I`m on a Dell ATM and I can't say that they're lousy. good for stuff. The nly thing is that they make Dell Special stuff, but it is still possible to Upgrade video card, RAM and CPU.
I would only get a dell on two conditions:
1, no OS, I don't want to pay for an OS I think is bloated and useless.
2, a free PCI-E slot, not some useless board with nothing but integrated.
i have enjoyed my dell. it's a dell dimension 3000, with specs below...i have added firewire ports, put in a dvd drive, put in a larger hard drive, added a video card and audio card, and have 2GB ram in route from newegg right now to upgrade my memory.