This same computer from Dell or HP seems to cost about $200 more?

http://www.emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_T5026

yes

eMachines used to totally suck crap. They were cheap to buy and were not even worth that. With that being said... over the past few years they have attempted to make a decent machine and actually did. I would have never have recommended an eMachine but my friend bought one so I checked it out. I must say it was a fairly decent machine. Not flimsy like old models and he says it is still running stable after about 1.5 years. But never ever compare that to a Dell though They are worth the extra $ IMHO.

For the price of an eMachine, you can often build one better than Dell by yourself.

Or I'll do it for $100 over the hardware costs. heh.

I built my last one...which was a pain in the neck.

gateway will tell you that the popularity of the emachines line is what is pulling them out of financial ruin...

or at least, that is what our sales rep told us...

I've used several e-machines....all have been fine for low end machines.

As txag2k said, they used to be a total POS. About three years ago they were bought back by the original American ownership and they turned them into a good brand. So good in fact that they nearly put Gateway out of business. So Gateway bought the brand and screwed it back up again.

My brother bought one of their Athlon64 laptops last June after he and I looked at many difference models and brands. It had a nice widescreen LCD, a DVD burner, ATI 9600 Pro graphics card, and 512Mb of RAM for $1400. The overall design was very similar to the current HPs. I have been VERY impressed with it performance and reliability. My only real gripe is its relatively short battery life.

dell sucks

I have a friend who started having problems with his eMachines laptop, so he sent it off to them to be repaired. Days, and then a week started to pass without hearing anything. It's almost been a month now and he can't get anything out of the technical service people. It's like they've lost his machine and won't own up to it, so they're stalling or something. Horrible, horrible service.

If you think that is bad, try Sony's customer service. One of the nurses I work with sent her Viao laptop off for repair and she finally got it back 4 months later, and the problem had still not been fixed.

As for the eMachine laptops, the motherboard they use has 256Mb of RAM and when that RAM goes bad, so does the motherboard. HP, Compaq, and eMachines all use this same motherboard and have similar problems. It isn't terribly common, but it is a problem that all three brands share.

Shortly before I graduated, I was at my parents house and my dad and I were talking over breakfast. My computer was on its last legs (it was creeping up on its 4th birthday) and I was just *****ing. Knowing that I was starting grad school that fall, he took me to Fry's and bought me a e-machine as a graduation present.

Although it wasn't the greatest computer in the world, it was a big improvement over what I had before. It being free (and relatively cheap for him) was a nice bonus. Now this computer is approaching its 4th birthday and still chugging along. I've upgraded the memory, and the hard drive and the software and it keeps plugging away. I'd like to get another 6-12 months out of it before relegating it to server duty in the closet.

Although, as my other thread indicates, the heat sink and fan have gone out. At least, I think that's the problem. My computer runs for about 10 minutes, freezes up and restarts. I'm hoping that it is a heat problem, otherwise I don't know what is wrong. My fan has been getting progressivley more noisy over the last year or so and I've been meaning to replace it for a while.

I bought one last summer. I have had no problems. I thought it was a good deal, $350 after rebates. 2.7 GHz, 80 GB hard drive, 17" monitor, and an HP ink jet printer.

I basically use it for the internet and Microsoft Office applications.

My parents bought 2 for like 250 bucks each the day after thanksgiving 2 years ago.

Yeah they don't come with Office or anything, but as far as internet/word processing/instant messaging/MP3/basic photo/etc you really can't go wrong. This is the majority of what most users need.

I would ABSOULOUTELY buy one if I ever need a new computer. Customer service is really not good no matter what you buy.

Unless I needed a desktop same day, I don't think I'd ever buy one again. I can think of other uses of the 2-3 hours it takes to assemble one, but I guarantee that I get what I want into the machine and it works for a long time.

I did have a Maxtor drive go bad on me. First HD ever I've had crash. So I stick to the better parts and everything seems to work.

TAMUSC is right, gateway torpedoed e-machines when it bought it out. I bought an e-machines laptop last year like mentioned above with amd64 bit processor, 512 ram, ati 9600 mobile video, etc. It is rock solid and very fast. Anyway, Gateway bought them out to get them out of the way. The specs on the laptops they are selling now are crap. E-machines is done.

Just buy a Dell refurbished computer. When I got mine it was 300 dollars!

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I built my last one...which was a pain in the neck.

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That must have been an interesting case mod.

I always build my own PCs... I also tend to upgrade my PCs one piece at a time instead of starting from scratch.

eMachines should be fine for people that don't want to mess with computers, but I wouldn't advise swapping out hardware. When it's time to upgrade, expect to upgrade the entire computer, case and all. The monitor and printer might be reusable.

Computers are getting harder and harder to build by hand, and the components are all upgrading faster than before. Now when you want to upgrade your CPU, you need to upgrade the motherboard, which requires you to upgrade the memory. Then to take advantage of the high speed IDE bus, you need to get a new hard drive. At that point, you practically have an entirely new computer anyway.

Any modern computer you can get for under $300 should be adequate. If it completely craps out on you in a few years, spend another $300 and buy a new one. You'll spend that much anyway if you try to keep a computer up to date one component at a time.

I'll never get an eMachine by choice because I do mess with my own computers, and I HATE messing with proprietary hardware. It's worth considering if you never want to open the thing or replace anything.