With the recent passing of Precious, my beautiful Dell (yes, Dell) laptop, I've been looking at desktops again. And half-heartedly thinking about building my own, but dammit I don't have the time to tinker at the moment (I wish I did but I don't).

I'm interested to know your final decision, and your reasons for it - mostly because I'm lazy and I want someone else to make up my mind for me. I admit to leaning towards a pre-built from a major manufacturer, butI then imagine myself sitting down to do some tweaking, and being consistently stymied by warranty considerations. That would annoy me. Greatly.

By the by, arguments for and against the major players in the computer industry are generally all valid, and these sorts of decisions come down to personal preference and going with that you are familiar with. Dell (here in Australia, at least) have beyond exceptional after-sales service and their product is generally good, however their manipulations (such as causing a whole laptop to not work due to battery built-in obsolescence) are a big turn-off. HP desktops have been for me, a pain in the arse to do anything with "under the hood". Their market aim appear to be those people who don't look too deeply beyond what is put in their face. Same with Toshiba - awesome laptops, but configuration can be a pain. Asus laptops are improving, but can be very hit and miss.