Are emachines good computers?

[bigdog1218]

I wanted to get a computer for my sister and was going to put one together for her, but then saw some of the prices of emachines and wondered if I should safe myself the hassle of ordering everything, putting it together, shipping it to her and then being tech support.

Anyone have any experience with these?

Thanks

 

[Ionizer86]

Emachines sucks. They use very unfortunate parts to save money whenever possible.

 

[lordtyranus2]

what he said.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Ionizer: Not really, my brother's $500 one came with a Seagate hard drive, not what I was expecting when I opened it up

bigdog1218: I'd reccomend just getting one of those. Tech support is easy as long as its still under warranty. We had a problem with watching DVD's on it, they sent us a whole new copy of XP to use. They don't really try to "argue" with the customer. I would reccomend one, they are great especially for the price and the fact that you can get one for like $500 with monitor, OS, printer, etc. Heck, their monitor would be $100 at newegg plus shipping and the OS would be around $100. Thats $200 plus shipping right there. That leaves just under $300 for the system, speakers, mouse, printer, keyboard, etc.

 

[bigdog1218]

Thanks for the reply,

Yeah they're def cheap for what they include, she doesn't need a computer with blazing speed, I just want to find a cheap computer that won't break down all the time.

 

[compudog]

eMachines aren't that bad. I have only ever had to change a PSU in one. Most of the motherboards are ECS or Asrock and the drives are Seagate or WD, (IIRC) Not too shabby for all you get.

 

[Sid59]

eh they are decent. i replaced a mobo on an older emachine. wasn't too hard finding a replacement micro-atx board for a socket 370 p3/celeron.

 

[sniperruff]

they are ok but dells on sale would be much much better.

or get a nforce2 (IGP)+ AXP1800 and 256mb of PC2100, a WD800JB, and some CDRW on sale and a decent case then you're good to go

should cost around $300. a good place to start shopping is newegg.com and the hotdeals forum

 

[JimRaynor]

Yeah, get one of those cheapie Dells. If you are worried about the possibility of it breaking down, I wouldn't buy an emachine. I would be very scared.

 

[ripthesystem]

My girlfriend has had an eMachine for 4 years now. Exactly what you'd expect from a propriety machine. It works and is fairly reliable. Nothing major has gone wrong with it at all.. I've upgraded the vid card for her and added some more RAM but other than that it's been A+ for 4 years running and definately worth what they paid for it.

hth

 

[Vanye]

At one time E-machines may not have been too hot but these days they're pretty good.
For $600 dollars you get:
Case ENlight Corporation NexGen 2
Motherboard FIC AU31
CPU AMD XP 2800+
Memory 512MB DDR PC2700 DIMM
Power Supply Bestec ATX-250 250 Watt
Video nVidia GeForce 4 MX (Integrated) AGP
Audio nVidia nForce 6-Channel Audio
Hard Disk Drive 120 GB Western Digital
Primary Optical Drive 48X / 24X / 48X /Lite-On
Secondary Optical Drive 16x DVD / JVC
Floppy Disk Drive Generic 3.5
Modem PCI Conexant 56 K v.90
Network Interface Card RealTek 8101L 10/100 PCI
For the price thats not really all that bad, and it compares well to Dell's low end.

 

[EzEddie]

the new ones are actually pretty decent. the T2825 has a XP 2800+ barton processor with a FIC AU31 nForce2 mobo (IGP), 120GB hard drive, 512 pc2700, DVD-rom, CD-RW. The tower alone is $619 ao they probably have package deals for around $650 with monitor and printer.

 

[buckmasterson]

The computer Vayne describes is a pretty good machine. The only thing I'd do is put a better modem in it as soon as I bought it. Find a hardware modem somewhere and you would have a good set up.

 

[zodder]

Reading through this, it seems that eMachines are a very good deal at those price points.

 

[Sideswipe001]

They must have improved a lot. I had an old one that crashed if you looked at it wrong, and I've worked with another one where the case was breaking apart, and the onboard sound gave a constant annoying buzz over any speakers hooked up to it.

I personally wouldn't touch em.

 

[DarkKnight]

they're good for people who won't ever touch the inside of the computer, like your sis. I personally don't like them because I like to upgrade my system.

 

[JammingJay]

You get what you pay for.

1) Great prices

2) Generally not very upgradable

3) Components are cheap, but functions

4) Actual warranty vs building your own and not really having too much support for the average computer user.

5) You can buy one in stores vs going the online route

If you want a built cheapie for your sister, then its not a bad buy. Dell cheapies are not too bad either.

 

[bigdog1218]

Originally posted by: Vanye
At one time E-machines may not have been too hot but these days they're pretty good.
For $600 dollars you get:
Case ENlight Corporation NexGen 2
Motherboard FIC AU31
CPU AMD XP 2800+
Memory 512MB DDR PC2700 DIMM
Power Supply Bestec ATX-250 250 Watt
Video nVidia GeForce 4 MX (Integrated) AGP
Audio nVidia nForce 6-Channel Audio
Hard Disk Drive 120 GB Western Digital
Primary Optical Drive 48X / 24X / 48X /Lite-On
Secondary Optical Drive 16x DVD / JVC
Floppy Disk Drive Generic 3.5
Modem PCI Conexant 56 K v.90
Network Interface Card RealTek 8101L 10/100 PCI
For the price thats not really all that bad, and it compares well to Dell's low end.

That was the system i was looking at, thanks for the replies everyone.

 

[imported_Phil]

I service the UK-model eMachines on a daily basis, but you know which manufacturer we have in more than them? Packard Bell. Sigh.

Anyway, they're not actually that bad, although I really can't stand the fact that most of them are Celerons

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend
I service the UK-model eMachines on a daily basis, but you know which manufacturer we have in more than them? Packard Bell. Sigh.

Anyway, they're not actually that bad, although I really can't stand the fact that most of them are Celerons

How is Packard Bell still in business? Those were some of the most craptastic computers ever.

 

[imported_Phil]

They were (and are) craptasically craptastic. Still. Yet I have to service the fcvking things- do you know how long it takes to factory-restore a modern-ish Windows XP machine? 2.5 HOURS!!!

This is without user intervention, I might add. First it copies the WinXP setup files to the hard disk after formatting it, then installs XP, then uses SysPrep 2.0 to install all the drivers and software. It'll reboot anything up to twenty times during this process, and then run defrag in the background for a further 15 minutes to straighten everything out. Grrr.

Goddamnit.:|

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: DopeFiend
They were (and are) craptasically craptastic. Still. Yet I have to service the fcvking things- do you know how long it takes to factory-restore a modern-ish Windows XP machine? 2.5 HOURS!!!

This is without user intervention, I might add. First it copies the WinXP setup files to the hard disk after formatting it, then installs XP, then uses SysPrep 2.0 to install all the drivers and software. It'll reboot anything up to twenty times during this process, and then run defrag in the background for a further 15 minutes to straighten everything out. Grrr.

Goddamnit.:|

Packard Hell at its finest.

 

[cheapherk]

No.

 

[mrgoblin]

Emachines comps are like dells tech support. Im gonna leave it at that

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: mrgoblin
Emachines comps are like dells tech support. Im gonna leave it at that

Have you ever used it? They didn't argue with me and spoke english very well, I don't care what country they're from, theydidn't argue or tell me what I'm doing wrong if I did something wrong, instead they sent me a copy of XP home to install and see if that fixed it.

That was with a what, $500 computer? We standard warranty?