I bought a Dell P4 about a year ago.... 1. I use ATI cards, incl TV tuner... AIW, so I got the "ATI Ultra" video card option. It's a "built by ATI" card, and was not compatible with the All-In-Wonder, so had to discard it. 2. CD-RW pooped out in 6 months, but they sent me a replacement in about a week. 3. At 6 months HD was starting to get a bit noisy, so I bought a replacement. (That it's starting to noisy is an early sign of pending failure, but it still works fine and would not be candidate for warranty replacement.) When swapping out the HD's I noticed that the Dell was about 1/2 the weight of the Maxtor replacement and that the Dell's case was made of plastic. Bottom line... they're building with cheaper components than in the past, but I'm sure all makers are. Service and Technical Support has been very good. If I were in the market now to buy a another trading computer (and didn't want to spend the $$ for all first-rate components... hey, you could buy Alienware for $1000 more than a Dell, but it won't necessarily perform significantly better or last longer), I would buy Dell again.
DELL service has gone down in the past several years, as their focus has gone to capturing market share in a price war. They provide better service to corporate clients, but even that has been downgraded a little in order to beat the prices of HP & IBM. If I had need of a mission critical machine, in which service were a key component, I would choose HPQ or IBM at this point, and would pay more to do so. We will see if DELL upgrades their service down the road when the business cycle changes to PC growth, and there is less competition due to attrition. Right now, they have become the Toyotas of the computer world. Those with no money issues, or those who want luxury service, don't even bother to look.
The biggest problem with Dell is that they use some proprietary componets that make serious upgrading difficult/impossible. For example, their power supplies and motherboards are made to their own OEM specs, so you can't just go out and buy an aftermarket motherboard and replace what's in there. That being said, Dell's quality is excellent and service very good. I'm typing this on Dell from 1993; ten years later, it's still working. BTW INSIST he get a back up powers supply with surge protector and. It will save his computer from getting fried. Mine clicks on on about once a month for a second of two each time. Voltage spikes and dips are deadly for computers. HTH.
I chose Dell over Gateway for quality, support, and longevity reasons. My Dell Precision 340 uses Rambus PC800 ECC RAM and Seagate drives. It's a very well-built system is and easy to access and work on. The key service differentiator is Dell's Gold Tech Support. ~$100 uplift for 3 years. The is NO holding, NO call screaming, er, screening--you are connected within 1 to 4 rings to a support engineer. Gold is available on the Precision, Latitude, and Optiplex product lines. I think Dell has a much better chance of being around longer than Gateway. Dell is really good about having sales--usually between 10-20%. Free shipping is offered often. Just check their website twice a week and you'll see a special on. Prices are very competitive when their products are on sale. Considering the current state of consumer customer support, I am extremely pleased with Dell PS: Someone mentioned refurbs. Dell's refurbs are like new. I could swear that the Inspiron I purchased for my folks had never be touched by a previous owner! Great prices @ www.delloutlet.com