Advantages of branded PC
1. Come with Preloaded Operating system.
The cost of the same is included in the cost of the system along with additional service changes for loading the OS
2. Quality assured because manufactures of Banded PCs are expertise in this industry.
Not necessarily, I have seen the internals of many a Dell, HP, Gateway, IBM and Apple Mac and all of them reflected lack of quality in both choice of components and care with assembly. The internals screamed that the focus was purely on lowering cost. Do note many of these systems were acquired from outside the country. So its definitely not a matter of poor quality builds in India.
3. We can expect good performance.
No care has ever been taken in optimizing the performance of their systems both at hardware level and at software level. The hardware is not always well balanced. They pair a powerful processor with minuscule amount of RAM and then sell off by marketing the processor. I have seen systems with DVD ROM Drives connected in slave mode. poor quality cables, useless fan positioning, The focus is purely on using as min raw material as possible and then they pre-load the systems with lots of junk that hogs up the system and totally useless.
4. Good Service support.
That is very subjective and especially in a country like ours. When the support is really worthwhile, they have probably changed a lot of money for it separate from the cost of the system. While most components individually have 3~5 years warranty. The typical branded system comes with 1 year paid/free warranty and any thing above that is charged separately.
5. Come with PC restore CD.
Disadvantages of branded PC
1. 20 to 30 % expensive when compare to an assembled PC
The difference can be much more higher than 30%. Some years back I got a quote form dell for a high end PC for which they quoted 1,45,000 with extra charges for additional warranty. I assembled a machine that was about 2.5 times as powerful for 80k.
2. Difficult to upgrade.
In many cases expect for RAM and some other small things, its impossible to upgrade due to the poor internal build. Also you will void what ever warranty if you get components from outside and getting same thing though the manufacturer will cost 3~4 times the market cost.
3. Not possible to customize the configuration
These days you do get the option to configure the system with most manufacturers, but the cost incurred for those choices has no valid pattern matching the market rates.