Our company buys Dells, not a lot, maybe 5 laptops and 5 desktops each year, to replace aging equipment. Recently my docking station started having issues that would shutdown my computer at random. Our admin guy called Dell and they had a full replacement here in 48 hours - no charge. The original docking station was 11 months old. My Latitude, which acquired 137,000 air miles in 11 months and rides daily in a 911 with sport shocks, has been solid and dependable, just as the Toshiba Satellite it replaced. When my docking station went down I manually connected my "appliances" and forged on.

Sounds like your new Mac had a few teething issues itself. My Dell had none. So in this small test sample the PC seems more stable than your Mac - no?

Can't comment on Dell holding your cash - that's terrible.