I need a new PC..Looking for thoughts on emachine PC's. (1 Viewer)

[Alf S]

My "old" HP Pavillion is showing it's age when it come to multi-tasking etc. It's a 650 that only allows 256 memory max.

We really don't have the cash on hand to go the Dell route, so we wanted to buy something locally using the Best Buy card and take advantage of one of their 2 year no interest deals.

If we go that route, I've noticed they sell emachines, and I've read some pretty favorable reviews online and in PC magazines saying emachines have really done a 180 as far as quality and value goes.

That lead me to THIS emachine and I wanted thoughts from you, the "experts".

I know I want more memory, bigger hard drive (to store my DVD movies), etc, but I'm lost when we start talking about "front bus" and L2 cache etc. so I was hoping for some input.

If you can point us to another model/brand that's reasonably priced, I'd appreciate it.

Thaks in advance
Alf

 

[SethH]

That looks like a pretty good deal. I've never been too impressed with eMachines, but I've read many favorable things about them recently, so maybe they've turned things around a bit.

I wouldn't worry too much about more memory or a bigger HD just yet. Get it and then see what you need. 160GB can go pretty far and 512MB RAM is pretty much the standard now. Unless you're going to be editing video or doing photoshop you probably wouldn't need any more than 1GB of RAM.

The fact that the LCD monitor is inluded in that price makes it a pretty good deal.

I don't know much about the Windows XP Media Edition OS that's installed on that computer. You might want to do a little research into that before buying.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

The last dell I got was $299...

 

[Seth--L]

You're going to want more than a 1 year warranty.

 

[Alf S]

Never gonna find a Dell with the features I need for that price....try around $600-800 for just the PC.

I will be doing some DVD editing and we do have Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop, so we will need at least the 512 memory.

Keep the thoughts coming..BB has an 18 month deal going this week on PC packages.

Alf

 

[Scooter]

My experience with emachines is that they suck! I wound up having a significant relationship with 2..one The Loveley Michelle's and the other my neighbors.

They pack a ton of crap on the HD and , again my experience, are tempermental and high maintenance.

I suggest Vaio or HP..Morgan has a KICK ASS HP he got at Sam's Club.

 

[Sean Moon]

The eMachines are MUCH improved over the last few years. Very good for the price. I am interested to see how well they stay now that Gateway owns them.

HPs have kinda gone down in quality over the year, but their laptops are quite nice. The Vaios are too pricey for what you get in my opinion. There are even some 999 Vaios out there without even an AGP slot. WTF is that? Of course with PCIX coming, who knows.

 

[Alf S]

Any thoughts on THIS Compaq Presario?

Not a bad price after rebates..has all the features I'm looking for too.

 

[Ken.Nischan]

I've never been a fan of eMachines. I personally would avoid buying prebuilt store computers at all. I much prefer to build my own.. more reliable (because I built it and I chose quality hardware) and cheaper. For example I could build that Compaq for about $250 cheaper.

 

[RossTerry]

i have an Emachines laptop, its been great for the ~6 months ive had it. i'd recommend the new emachines. compare Dell's customer service to emaschines, yet another plus.

 

[SethH]

My biggest concern with that Compaq is the graphics "card." It's a shared memory graphics system which means it's stealing 64MB of your RAM to run the graphics. The eMachines has a much better graphics setup. I think I would take the eMachines in this instance.

 

[Ben LG]

I had a emachines desktop about three years ago, just as reliable as the customized PCs Ive built. They were the company I would go with if I want cheap but recently seems their prices are not that good of a deal anymore.

 

[Scott L]

Does Morgan post here anymore? Almost forgot about him!

I'll throw in my $.02 and say a computer is a big investment. It does A LOT of stuff and the last thing you'd want is a cheap unstable system. You will save yourself many headaches if you get a quality system. Go for at least a Dell.

 

[LaMarcus]

Hopefully I explain this right, anyone correct me if I say something inaccurate.

Front side bus is the speed between the L1 cache and L2 cache on the processor. Backside bus is the speed from the processor to the RAM.

L1 and L2 is the memory that is on the actual processor, before the started making all the new chips that have these already on them, they used to actually be separated on the the motherboard, and you could actually change them manually.

I have no experience with emachines, but from the specs alone it seems pretty sweet, blows my pc away. Even though my pc is 4 years old with a 933mhz pIII, and 192mb RAM with a 20 GB hd. You may question how I live like this, lol. My pc works just fine for what I use it for, even the things that recommend you have the extreme numbers of the newer pc's, I've never been unable to do anything on it, so until then.....

Hope this helps.

 

[ClintS]

I have had an emachine for about 4 years and it has been the lowest problem machine I have ever had. I have upgraded the hard drive, ram, video card,
added an ethernet card, and added an usb 2.0/firewire card. I have replaced the power supply and the cpu fan only because I'm anal and the old ones were dirty and noisy. My FIL has the exact same PC and has done nothing to except add a CD writer. I would gladly buy another and will likely do so shortly!

 

[Sami Kallio]

That is a nice deal but if you're willing to built your own, you will save some money. The weakest link on that E-machine is the video card, and it is a very weak link. Try first if they would exchange it for a better one if you paid the difference. If that doesn't work, get a better one and swap it yourself.