I've been following Ayende's trouble with a software licensing vendor and felt compelled to write a story that has a more positive light. 

Since 2003 I've purchased all my laptops from Dell. My first being the 600m model. Being one of the first models offered implementing the Centrino architecture, it wasn't the cheapest laptop in the world. If I recall correctly the invoice was close to $2400! When it arrived I was extremely happy with it until the first week of the Fall semester. Something went horribly wrong and it failed to startup. Frustrated, I phone Dell's technical support and was happy to get through in the first couple minutes. The customer support agent was clearly eager to help and wanted to resolve my issue. We went through the checklist and he decided that it would be best to ship it back to get repaired. Two days later I receive a box to ship the laptop and within a week I get a fully functional laptop back. I was impressed. 

My second laptop was a XPS 1530 in 2008 which was a dream machine. Unfortunately it was stolen a couple months after the purchase so I don't have any service stories about that one. The thief also took my 600m which had be running perfectly since the replacement unit was delivered.

Last December I decided to jump on the netbook bandwagon and purchased a Mini 9. After a day of use I noticed the screen start to flicker. It wasn't bothering me too much, but as time went it became worse. Eventually the machine kicked the bucket in less than a month of ownership! I phone customer support and the helpful agent arranged to deliver a box that I could ship the laptop back to the repair centre. Again, in less than a week, I receive the laptop back repaired, and with a bonus 16GB SSD drive (and had originally purchased the 8GB).

You would think I would hold Dell in a negative light, but the opposite is in fact true. Having 2 out of 3 laptops fail within a month is purely back luck on my part. I don't question the quality of Dell products, and the excellent service I received was enough for me to come back to them for future purchases.

Now to get back to setting up OS X on my Mini 9!