Poll: Best Computer Brand?

[TheComedown]

So I've had..3 Acers (Laptop and desktop) and all of them have given me problems. Like constant BSOD-kind of problems. And apparently I'm not the only one. My friend's Acer desktop has a tendency to shut down on him on a whim. Thus I have deep hatred of Acers and need advice on what to buy next time. And also because I'm too lazy to build my own.
So Escapists, which computer brand are you using, and would you recommend it to others?

And no, Apple's not counted because the only good mainstream game you can play on a Mac
is..what, Sims 3?

EDIT: Yes, I am aware you can play more than Sims 3 on a Mac. No, I just don't want an Apple because it means I need something extra to play games on it. And also this would have to be taken into consideration next time I buy a title. Which I would prefer not to because I'm a lazy ass bastard and don't like limiting my options.
EDIT 2: For desktops it's pretty much straightfoward. Build your own. So let's leave the above poll to be about laptops.

http://www.ibuypower.com/lobby.aspx

maybe you should try something like that, most of the shelf pre built ones are either stupidly over priced and/or stupidly underpowered. something like that lets you set your price and parts and does the rest for you.

 

[Skuffyshootster]

The last three laptops I've owned are a 7-year old Dell 5100, a 2-year old Toshiba Satellite, and I'm typing this up on a year-old Gateway.

The Dell, even though the company gets a lot of flack, still runs fine even though one of the hinges is broken. The big problem I have with it is that you have to boot it up twice to actually proceed to the XP loading screen, and it doesn't do media well, which is probably due to it's age. It's quite a trooper. I'll be sad to see it go.

The Toshiba had great speakers and worked fine while we had it, but it crapped out after my dad dropped it. We still salvaged the hard drive and transferred it to the Gateway, which is also decent, although the speakers aren't as good.

None of them are for gaming, although you could play Spore on low settings with the Toshiba.

In the next week I'm hopefully getting my own laptop for school and some gaming. I was considering the Asus G73jh, which had killer specs and from what I read could play pretty much every game currently on the market. A steal for the roughly 1600$ price. But I eventually settled on the Sager NP8690, which while not as powerful as the Asus, is only 15.6", as opposed to the 17.1" screen the Asus had. It should still be able to run most games, though. The vanilla price is 1209$, but when I'm done customizing it would be in the 1500$ range. You might not upgrade it the same way, though.

So, thats my 0.02$. Hope it helped, with laptops anyway.