In the fairly long time that I've been using computers, I've had only two "brand" desktop computers - my very first one, a Philips 8088/8 Mhz PC-XT, and later a preassembled clone from the supermarket.
That Philips machine wasn't bad. I put in a hard disk myself, a whole whopping 20 MB! Used it for several years before upgrading to a 286.
The preassembled clone from the supermarket wasn't bad either. One of the things I liked about is was that the components were listed in the brochure. So I knew what brand and model mainboard I'd be getting, what brand and model harddisk, graphics card, the whole kaboodle. Looked up all the stuff on the Internet (Anandtech, Tom's Hardware Guide) and found out they were all good quality components. I could have built the machine myself, at about the same price that the supermarket was charging.

I built all other machine myself. When I'm going to build a new machine, I check components, reviews and prices, and puzzle out what components I want to have. For some components, brand and model don't really matter (Optiarc DVD burners are OK, so are NEC DVD burners, Same price too, so I just don't care). For other components it is very important (mainboards!).
Once I have the shopping list complete, I drive to the computer store (100 km  drive) and buy the whole bunch at once.
I've always been able to build standard PCs out of good quality components that are faster than their counterpart brand (HP, Dell) macihines, at two thirds of the price - including the gas price for driving 200 km!

One of the things I don't like about brand computers is the power supply. Usually underdimensioned. That Dell Quad core is going to be delivered with a 300W PSU. barely enough to power the CPU, the harddisk, the DVD station and the current graphics card. If you want to upgrade the graphics card, you will also have to upgrade the PSU.
Extra RAM will probably work fine, but a second hard drive may already consume too much power for the 300W PSU.

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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