"al" wrote in message ...
For the record, I would not personally consider VPC to come close to
the major OEMs in terms of testing and reliability. Trust me, any OEM
can win 'awards' if they provide the *reviewer* the right hardware at
the right time!

Granted, I don't know a lot about the company, but the reviewers weren't
small time mags & nerd pages, they should know what they're doing. Valid
point about making a prototype that is cool, but reading between the lines,
my guess is that they actually make quite good systems. Quite a few US
hobbyist pages point to them too, which is always a good sign.

I don't know enough about them to say if they are good or bad, all I
can say is they won't have done the same amount of testing as the
major OEMs, they simply couldn't afford it.

If I were spending 2k on a PC, I would _only_ buy it from a major OEM.
The problem is, someone like Dell, IBM, HP, etc. aren't going to spend the
time you'd think configuring systems. They bang stuff together for high
volume sales. Their main market is the sub-£1000 stuff, which is just a

See my other post! - It is in their interest to configure and test
their units to avoid costly returns and after sales support costs.
"Bang[ing] stuff" together is more akin to the 10k pa suppliers IME.

Before a new PC range is released, a major OEM will have used several
teams of people to test the product for several months! - Thats alot
of man hours! (Remember they also have access to new techology long
before it hits the shelves)

L.N.