I worked for a division of Acer a number of years ago leading a team of engineers designing a new system... the standard PC manufacturing had a reputation with our Silicon Valley engineering teams of doing "just enough". Structurally, the machines were "just enough" to stand up to "normal" use and not much more. The components were "just enough" to do the expected job (i.e. the power supplies in a desktop machine were powerful enough to handle the base PC and a couple of additional cards.... you plug something in that the manufacturing team didn't think you'd use, or fill all the slots, and the supply would fall over). My opinion is that they haven't changed a lot since I was there.

All that being said.... I'd get IBM or DELL.... and I prefer IBM by a far margin even now that they're under the Lenovo name (who has building IBM PCs for years anyway.... just no one knew it).

These opinions are mine..... YMMV

D.