I wouldn't buy an Acer again. I don't know what the desktops are like though.
My Acer Aspire laptop had a problem with its keyboard 2/3 months after purchase, I had to send it off for a few weeks to be repaired, after a little over a year (conveniently outside of the warranty), the power adapter stopped working, then it had over-heating problems and before I could get it sorted out, it died. A few friends who have had Acer laptops have had them die and a friend who is currently using an Acer Aspire Laptop is having a good user experience, it's a powerful beast for the price he got it for, but it is prone to collecting dust inside.
I liked my Acer Aspire, it was a nice laptop - it had a fantastic screen on it and was a powerful lil thing, it would have been great value for money...if it survived longer than a year.
But to be fair with any brand you're going to buy, there's a risk of your computer failing, so it's actually hard to judge which is best, but normally I hear people say: 'don't go for Acer or Dell' to be followed with folk who have had a good experience with both. I had a hard time trying to convince a co-worker at my old job as to why Dell weren't the best brand out there even after the supervisor's spiel about why so many Dells (like the one we were trying to sell) had so many problems with their batteries, but then she wasn't very computer savvy, though she was selling computers as part of her job. I guess to some the higher the spec for lower the price equals the better computer, a computer is economical right up until the point you have problems with it.
My experience for 'long-lasting' computers have been (and I suspect there will be people out there who have bad experiences with each):
Compaq
Toshiba
Packard Bell
Apple
And so far...I've had a good experience with Lenovo and would definitely recommend it, but haven't owned mine long enough to say it'll last. But it is durable, I have dropped it before out of my own idiocy.
