General question from a computer idiot

[Michaelson]

G'day all, I'm not incompetant with computers, in fact I have a pretty good intuition with them, but I also hate them, take no general interest in them and I don't keep up with the times. For those reasons this question could be dumb...

Are some computers just better constructed and more reliable than others? I have had several Dell computers over the last 8 years or so, and they've all ended up slow and unstable relatively quickly. My current machine I bought at the start of last year and was, I thought, pretty snazzy. Dual Core and all the rest, not a beast of a machine, but much more powerful than anything else I have had.

So anyway, a year and a half later, it stalls all the time, sometimes over really mundane tasks. I've had several blue screens with it. Sometimes programs will just spontaneously crash. I get weird error messages quite often. Loading the startup items takes a freaking eternity.

Basically it is the bane of my existance. I have formatted it a couple of times, but that only sorted things out for a week or two (the last time not even that long) before all the same stuff starts creeping in.

Now, i compare this to my thinkpad laptop I bought almost 3 years ago with specs nowhere near as impressive as my desktop, and it is a little trooper of a machine. No inexplicable error messages. Runs smoothly almost always. Startup items are loaded in about 15 seconds. The DVD player doesn't work anymore for some reason, but apart from that it's great!

So anyway, I'm looking to buy a new computer soon to replace the lemon I currently own. Are there certain brands that I should look at which should be more reliable, or is it more important that I look for certain specs or something? Basically I'd like to know the best way to go about getting a workhorse machine that can handle the relatively basic demands of an online poker player, and continue to do so for years to come without causing me headaches. or is it just luck of the draw?

Anyway, I've rabitted on too much. Any advice will be appreciated though!

Cheers,
Mik

P.S. For some reason I always format posts in this forum like emails. Weird.