Which Desktop To Purchase; Suggestions ?

Hi,

Would appreciate any and all thoughts on this.

Want to buy a new Windows10 Desktop pc for my son, and his graduate school courses.

I realize that most of these brands, probably, use components from the same sources,
and that to a very large extent it is truly the luck of the draw.

But, is there any general consensus these day regarding reliability on Desktops ? Dell, HP, etc ?

(And, ease of setting it up; we are both very non-technical when it comes to computers)

Over the years, many, I've had good luck with Dell and HP Desktops, and also very bad experience with both.

Reliability is the number one factor. (and ease of getting it going).
He does not play games on it, etc. Pretty basic stuff.

Amazon a good source ? Not looking for absolutely lowest price; just ease of returning and warr. if it doesn't work.

Might as well also ask: same questions regarding a Monitor for ? (Brand, Model, etc. ?)

Much thanks, really appreciate the help,
R.R.

I've had good results from both Dell and HP. Choose either ... or Asus.
I'm not too particular about brand.

Anyway ... desktops can be had from $300 to $3000, but it's not (yet) clear which of those would suit you.
I think you (or your son) should first decide upon your needs.

I build my own, but I would advise against Asus, there tech support and repair service is just horrible if you get a bad one without a great instore warranty a store or vendor that your trust. I use Asus myself but I'm also quite aware of the poor tech support and repair services If I get a bad motherboard I just buy a new one since Asus might or might not repair or send a new one but I know it will be weeks before I find this out. my notebook was purchased after following the ROG forums and the generations of this particular notebooks. So I knew I had a pretty good chance of getting a good one and I did.
Asus monitors are great and have little issues to deal with. For the most part, Asus makes very good products, the issues only arise when something goes wrong.
Dell used to have next day repair in-house warranty so if they still have that program that's the way I would go for reliability assurance and tech support reasons.

My experiences with HP have not been much better than Asus, however, my wife's HP All In One is about 4 years old now with no issues that I had to use HP tech support to fix.

So I really can't comment too much about HP or Dell, I do know that tech support and repair are very important for someone in college and they really don't have time to wait around for hours on the phone with tech support that doesn't know much more than they do. They just need it to work or get fixed quickly.

Pick parts and build a computer with your son instead. It's just like Legos... well, sort of, but it's a blast together with friends & family and it's fairly easy today aswell if you look up Youtibe videos. If that's not an option I can definitely recommend Dell. Their computers are generally good, albeit a bit expensive (same with their monitors), but they offer good quality and reliability on their product line-up. I still have a XPS laptop that's probably 12 years old now and it still works. I also have a InfinityEdge UltraSharp monitor from Dell, aswell as a 9 year old Inspiron, all working.

Dell or HP and in that order.

I love Intel! I always suggest an Intel i3 or better. If he wants to multitask then 8GB of RAM. Windows 10 uses a little more RAM than others.

Pick one and research it online, amazon, newegg etc. and see all the comments. If there are no comments stay away IMO. Reviews are not end all be all, but they do tell you something. The more comments the more popular the pc was over time for the most part. I've seen pc's with no comments, this tells me that they did not sell for some reason, and maybe those comments were removed I don't know.

Unfortunately setup is a pain. Computers come with so much junk and popups, and most are for sales/advertising etc. Come back if you need to know what to disable and or uninstall.

3 Older Dells here 2 desktops 1 Laptop. The desktops are the older Optiplex mini form factor, they are both workhorses. For after sales support and warranty I would definitely go Dell.

Check out the Dell Outlet. You can often get some great deals there, if you are willing to choose a pre-built without customization.