I think Dells used to be better, but we still have them at home and I use them at work, and they are working fine for now. My husband had an old Dell that was a work horse--nothing ever went wrong with it! But when we got a new Dell within the first year, all under warranty, the processor, motherboard and monitor all had to be replaced because they went bad. At least it wasn't the hard drive! My father-in-law finally got rid of his Dell after his hard-drive went bad for the 3rd or 4th time.
In any case, we didn't get bad customer service from Dell, you just have to talk to people in India--it is all outsourced. Then after talking to tech support and they verify that it is indeed a hardware problem under warranty, they will send someone out to your house to fix it.
I think with Dell and many other major computer brands, is that their quality control has gone down as they are more mass produced cheaply. Computers become obsolete so fast as technologies change so you don't really need a computer to last you forever anyway, but it should at least last 5+years!
Whatever you buy, I would definitely recommend getting a decent warranty.