Believe it or not, it's possible for computers to malfunction without an incompetent user! My mom is fine on a computer, and her HP costed 1000 dollars. if that won't buy you a decent computer, then Macs are hardly more expensive. My computer costed only 400 or so dollars more than hers -and still has better specs-, not 2000 (sorry to disappoint, general nick)
I bought an Inspiron 518 a year ago from Dell and I've had so few problems with it that nothing jumps to mind. I can't tell you from the top of my head any catastrophic problems I've had.
Also, believe it or not, you can't judge an entire set of things off of one point of data. It'd be like rolling a dice, getting a six, and saying that every time you roll a dice you must get a six because that is what you got the first time.
Maybe you should've done more research on the computer you were about to buy.