App103 beat me to the punch - I love HP machines, but will NEVER buy any of their "consumer" grade machines. I too build my own, but when it comes to desktops, nothing beats a "business" grade laptop from HP (except maybe a business grade laptop from Lenovo). To be fair, you end up needing to get the top end to have a decent graphics card, or at least going through their custom configurator, but it is the same for Dell's, and I always found supporting HP laptops a bit easier. Unfortunately, for that convienience, you pay a premium; but in addition to the clean OS you get drive bays instead of built-in drives, you get cleaner designed docking stations (if you want them) and you get a much more customizeable system, both during configuration and later for upgradability. I will never buy a laptop that is not business grade unless I find a custom build.
PS - I don't know how other companies are handling it, but HP no long provides disks even with their business machines. Instead, they provide a disk label with instructions on how to make your own disk. Another cost cutting measure to annoy the masses (what does it save them? $.30/machine, if that much? Come on!), but since they were designed for businesses, I guess you only need a couple disks at most for your entire company and it does cut down on trash. Eh, not a bad tradeoff on the disks as long as they include the burning software (since you typically make it first thing on boot). Of course most businesses that maintain any significant number of machines use their own created image using something such as Acronis or Ghost....</rambling>
