Helping a friend buy a prebuilt computer

[Steve]

HP is my other choice. Thanks for the input, I'll see what I can price out for her

 

[ashishmishra]

Originally posted by: OrSin
Nothing wrong with e-machine really. The problems is some fo thier parts are some time crap. Most notable bad mother baord choices. Now they are ok. at least the with the ATI chipset.

Now I say just skip e-mail and for with HP. The HP with AMD chips are great. Good motherbaord, good prices, good looking case (women love the shiny stuff) and she will be much happier with the name. If she does like HP get he compaq of the same design.
HP AMD sysdtems beats emachice in pricing and features. Almost got one for myself.

One more vote to HP AMD, I have a Pavilion a1130n it's simply great. Go for the pre-built and ready to ship PC's

HP Pavilion a1250n Desktop PC
hpshopping.com price: $899.99
Price after rebates: $799.99* (As low as $26/mo?)
You save: $100.00 (11.1%)**
? AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual-core processor with enhanced virus protection (2.0GHz)
? Windows XP Media Center
? 1.0GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
? 250GB hard drive
? Double-layer DVD±R/RW drive with LightScribe, CD-RW combo drive
? DVD-ROM drive
? Integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics
? 9-in-1 digital media card reader
? One-year limited warranty

This is a steal of a deal. If you don't want integrated graphics add a pcie card. With the combined price with a pcie card its way cheap and way powerfull than any dell is currently.

 

[Cdubneeddeal]

What's with the flaming? My brother in law had an Emachine back in the day with a k6-333 CPU and it ran fine for years and years. Still to this day they would still have it but the kids broke the cdrom on it and my stepfather decided to compress the hard drive.

IMO it doesn't matter what prebuilt computer you buy now adays.

 

[ashishmishra]

Even I was considering the e-machine but the HP Pavilion's price and features won me over rather than its name!!

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: ashishmishra
Even I was considering the e-machine but the HP Pavilion's price and features won me over rather than its name!!

That's a pretty damn good system there, I'll run that by her. Thanks!

 

[Slowlearner]

Having bought/built/local buy some 50 computers in the last five years - I can attest to the fact that HP/Dells are extremely reliable machines with a very low failure rate. Dell's base pcs are, however, dogs that cannot be improved by changing this or that - at the very least you need a 5150. For the kind of tasks intended a dual core is not needed but a P4 with HT would be snappy. For HP an a1330 or 1350 or 1310 would also be Ok. Unfortunately HP rarely offers free shipping. Emachines have in fact improved in quality - I recently needed two base pcs in a hurry and so picked up emachines T3302 and I was quite impressed with features PCIE, sata card reader 160GB hd etc all for 449. I havent had them long enough to comment on their relaibility.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: sm8000

Originally posted by: MadOni0n
A $1000 eMachine? what are you thinking? sure if some old guy needs a budget solution for $200-300 max. For that amount, you can build a sweet gaming computer. I'd just get a dell or something, they have pretty good systems (with good warranty) around the 500 600 mark.

That eMachine is $599. $649 before the rebate.

RBachman, sorry but you're a pretty lame duck. I posted in OT for a reason - look how long this thread is

Didn't pappy ever give you a chat about quality vs. quantity?

 

[seanp789]

totally eSucks

 

[imported_electron]

Originally posted by: sm8000
She budgeted $2000 of her own accord, and she wanted the 2405. Her decisions entirely. She also insisted on video that doesn't share system RAM.

Work on your reading skills.

Did you at least advise her not to spend half the budget on the monitor? I got a 19" LCD recently for around $300 that I'm very happy with. I can't see myself spending 50% of my budget on monitor alone.

 

[JMoore]

The Emachine would probably be fine, but isn't it better safe than sorry? If I were you I would go with an HP AMD desktop or buy something from Dell. Emachines did used to be crap but now they are just average.

Edit: you want to make sure the computer you buy has an mb that has an PCI-E or AGP slot.

 

[unclebud]

what for
he said she ain't going to be playing games on it
all prebuilts are the same nowadays imo and better than homebuilts at a cheaper price
is op gonna have to do tech support if she gets too much spyware?
maybe people can concentrate on talking about warranties or phone email tech support

 

[videogames101]

Close you eyes and randomly point at one, it doesn't matter. Prebuilts are completely the same nowadays.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: ashishmishra

Originally posted by: OrSin
Nothing wrong with e-machine really. The problems is some fo thier parts are some time crap. Most notable bad mother baord choices. Now they are ok. at least the with the ATI chipset.

Now I say just skip e-mail and for with HP. The HP with AMD chips are great. Good motherbaord, good prices, good looking case (women love the shiny stuff) and she will be much happier with the name. If she does like HP get he compaq of the same design.
HP AMD sysdtems beats emachice in pricing and features. Almost got one for myself.

One more vote to HP AMD, I have a Pavilion a1130n it's simply great. Go for the pre-built and ready to ship PC's

HP Pavilion a1250n Desktop PC
hpshopping.com price: $899.99
Price after rebates: $799.99* (As low as $26/mo?)
You save: $100.00 (11.1%)**
? AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual-core processor with enhanced virus protection (2.0GHz)
? Windows XP Media Center
? 1.0GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
? 250GB hard drive
? Double-layer DVD±R/RW drive with LightScribe, CD-RW combo drive
? DVD-ROM drive
? Integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics
? 9-in-1 digital media card reader
? One-year limited warranty

This is a steal of a deal. If you don't want integrated graphics add a pcie card. With the combined price with a pcie card its way cheap and way powerfull than any dell is currently.

Wow, nice. Can you customize that to Win XP Home?

 

[ashishmishra]

Well I don't think so because it is a pre built and ready to ship item, try and customize it from scratch, I can guarantee u'll be looking at a higher price.

I'm not sure though why do you want to get Home instead of MCE, Professional is understandable. I got MCE with my Pavilion a1130n and I see no reason to shift to Professional let alone Home.

 

[ribbon13]

Why does it have to be be prebuilt? Tech support?

Look at this

 

[ashishmishra]

The system that you showed has a AMD 3200+ and at $805 I would any day get the Pavilion a1250n with X2 3800+, also rest of the config is better than the monarch system

HP Pavilion a1250n Desktop PC
hpshopping.com price: $899.99
Price after rebates: $799.99* (As low as $26/mo?)
You save: $100.00 (11.1%)**
? AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ dual-core processor with enhanced virus protection (2.0GHz)
? Windows XP Media Center
? 1.0GB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
? 250GB hard drive
? Double-layer DVD±R/RW drive with LightScribe, CD-RW combo drive
? DVD-ROM drive
? Integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics
? 9-in-1 digital media card reader
? One-year limited warranty

Come on admit it! It is an amazing deal for the price, much better value.

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: electron

Originally posted by: sm8000
She budgeted $2000 of her own accord, and she wanted the 2405. Her decisions entirely. She also insisted on video that doesn't share system RAM.

Work on your reading skills.

Did you at least advise her not to spend half the budget on the monitor? I got a 19" LCD recently for around $300 that I'm very happy with. I can't see myself spending 50% of my budget on monitor alone.

I tried to talk her down to a deal on the 2005, but she wanted what she wanted.

ribbon, I'd love to build her one but it's not in her comfort zone.

RBachman - you're right, I could have avoided assholes like you

 

[alimoalem]

emachines i try to stay away with. they usually use celerons or low end parts and are a little overpriced

 

[MDE]

There's nothing wrong with eMachines. Some people are stuck in the past just like those that claim that AMD chips are unstable.

 

[CKent]

Originally posted by: sm8000
RBachman - you're right, I could have avoided assholes like you

Frome one to another - :beer:

 

[MadOni0n]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf

Originally posted by: sm8000
Can some of you people elaborate on what you're saying? If there's something wrong with eMachines we need to know.

When I worked for BB (for a very short period before I realized how bad they were) about 4 years ago, Emachiines ad by far the highest return rate and the most crap installed that slowed the system down. The systems sold then had only 64% of memory free after boot, compared with about 85% after a clean install (most systems were in the high 70s).

are you refering to physical or kernel memory? what should a normal pc have available after boot?

 

[unclebud]

"they usually use celerons or low end parts and are a little overpriced"

what hp or compaq is cheaper? hp shopping pulled their sempron deals of the page - they were $249 after rebate and $100 (?) shipping