I am thinking of buying a new desktop computer for my office, or a new portable computer. Both of my current models are Dells, and I've been happy with them, except that they are five years old, and getting slow. The portable (a subnotebook with an 11 inch screen) is slow on booting, and on opening programs. The desktop gets slow whenever it's required to do something CPU-intensive in the background--e.g., an antivirus scan, playing an episode of bloggingheads.tv, etc.

I've been happy with Dell, but the customer comments I see on CNET.com and on Amazon.com about Dell's current quality control and customer service are horrific.

My plan is to buy a fairly powerful machine, so that I don't need to upgrade in a couple years. My home computer is a one-year old Gateway, which has worked great. Unfortunately, Gateway no longer sells directly, and only offers pre-configured machines from selected vendors. Its most powerful desktops appear to be available only from TigerDirect, with which some of my friends have had customer service problems.

I certainly don't want to buy from HP. I bought a multifunction printer from them a few years ago. When it broke (bad circuit board), they refused to sell me a replacement circuit board; instead they offered me a "discount" on a new printer; the "discounted" price was actually higher than the regular price available from several retail vendors.

I don't want to buy from Apple. Too many compatability issues with the Windows-based systems in my office and home.

So...should I go back to Dell? Or buy from somebody else? Who makes high-quality, reliable computers these days? I don't need a system with superfast video for gaming, nor do I expect that I need something with strong video editing powers. (But who knows what will be important in 3-4 years?) I do want something with a fast CPU, and lots of RAM. So what should I do?