My cousin's birthday is tomorow and he has no computer, so we're going out to get him a setup. I know what to look for as far as hardware specs and stuff, but since I haven't had much experience with these brands, how are they in terms of quality, service, etc. since we'll probably look at the better ones first.

• Acer
• Compaq
• eMachines
• HP
• Sony

okay, I'm not an expert, but I'm a pretty good consumer of electronics and PC stuff. Here's my personal opinion...
-Acer- good value for the money, good quality. I have an Acer 19" LCD monitor which I like a lot, mostly because I spent so little for it. You can get better quality, but you gotta pay for it.
-Compaq- you pay a little for the name, good quality, customer service sometimes difficult. I have a 3 1/2 year old Compaq laptop which has been very reliable. If you have trouble with it, contact this forum, not Compaq...
-eMachines- good value for the money, no personal experience.
-HP- sorry, don't know much about 'em.
-Sony- High price, high quality. My only problem with Sony is their use of proprietary software and hardware. I own a lot of Sony stuff and like it all, so the fact that I have to use memory sticks instead of SDs, etc. doesn't bother me too much.

With regard to desktop PCs, I have never bought a big name brand, finding that I could get a lot more bang for my buck with lesser names. If you pay attention to the components and specs, I'm sure you'll do fine.

Happy shopping!

Awesome. Thanks for the help.

FYI, Compaq is now owned by HP....

In my experience...there isn't much in difference between name brands...they're all the same product with a different sticker on it (basically).

I'd go HP/Compaq over rest of them, but that's just me and i've dealt with HP a lot over the last year or so.

Yeah, I've had an HP before actually and I did like it. Plus they're prices are pretty good, so I'll probably end up going with that.