Hi Sweetfeet, this topic comes up VERY often around my place because it's what I do for a living.
A couple of clarifications:
HP and Dell are not the same company. HP and Compaq are.
A hard drive is not just a hard drive. Depending on the age, there are several different interfaces for them to hook up. Liken it to putting a 3 pt hitch implement on a drawbar.
There are also different rotational speeds of the spinning disks in hard drives to make them faster. Different buffer sizes, access speeds and latency. That is, assuming you want a mechanical hard drive instead of the newer Solid State Drive. (SSD)
Memory is another gotcha. It is fairly cheap, and more is generally better, but if you buy a machine with a 32bit operating system, that OS will not use more than ~3.4GB of RAM even if you could put an infinite amount of ram in the box. Doesn't matter if it's Windows XP, Vista or 7 etc.
A 64 bit OS does not have the same limitation.
I'm not allowed to recommend one brand over another, but as someone else mentioned, there are specific models within each brand that perform better and last longer. They are usually the business class machines.
In Dell desktops for example, the homeowner version would be the Inspiron line where the business class would be the Optiplex or Precision line. Other companies are set up similarly. These business machines are not made for gaming, but you mentioned that's not what you're looking for anyway.
Step-son had a nearly top of the line consumer laptop for college that was dog slow and nothing but trouble. We replaced it with a Walmart special and have had zero issues since. The new one was geared more for what he was doing with it, instead of being purchased on "the specs" and "the numbers".
You might also want to check out the reviews on some reputable websites like Tom's Hardware or CNET and see what they have to say when comparing the new models.
Wish I was closer so I could look at it for you. Good luck! :)
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