Although I am all for PC-bashing....

I currently have 4 HP's (3 desktops and 1 laptop) and an HP desktop at work. I can't say I've had trouble with any of them. They all worked fine out of the box and the speeds have been resonable. We bought all of them from Walmart when we were in a computer pinch. My Dell laptop (which I LOVED) was too slow and having some troubles from what I believe was due to viruses. Instead of going through the headache of finding someone professional and reasonable to upgrade, I just ran to Walmart one night and bought my HP.

So far so good.... I've had Dell, Compaq, HP, Mac, and Gateway - I would say that Dell was my favorite when it was new, but after a year, it was ready to go to PC heaven, or a PC doctor. I really liked the Mac too but we had that in the 80's and early 90's, so I don't remember a whole lot about it.....