Emachines

[shebang]

I found out that an Emachines (NEW):

EMachines 2.66 GhZ Intel Celeron D 330 Processor
512 MB
80GB
17" Monitor

for $199.99 at Bestbuy. Any ideas if I should buy that instead of

http://www.krex.com/PPmain.asp?IC=3361&msk=PD , which I was going to get today. But I've heard Emachines wasn't a good brand and I'm not too familiar with this. So any help as to which I can get? Which is better, etc?

I'm putting Slackware on this. ONLY Linux. I'm not using this for anything else.

Thanks,
Shebang

[Schotty]

Emachines tend to use cheaper componets to get the job done (hence the low price). I would find out what they are using under the hood and then make a decision. My friend had an older emachines (back when a Celeron 366 was not that low end) that worked great. Cost him $50.00 after buying the monitor and printer that had an instant rebate of $150.00. All together he only spent $300. He used that PC for some time -- with some major upgrades of course. Newer hard drive, burner, 3d card, ram upgrade.

As for the machines in general -- be willing to burn alot of time upgrading if you want to ADD, instead of replace. And in some cases you can only add (sound, video, lan are usually integrated). And to a very small degree (1 agp, 2 pci slots). And the chassis were terribly difficult to work on. Took me 1:30 to ADD another hard drive. The other mount requred me to disassemble the entire pc.

Either way, I am not bitter. HP is way worse garbage than emachines ever will be.

[Killer_Penguin]

I'd say go w/ the Emachines. They have a reputation of selling cheap hardware, but thats exactly what you're buying. It's still open arch hardware and can be replaced by other stuff.

Check the PCI expansion or AGP expansion, make sure you can add on later if you need to.

[BurntAsh]

emachines are total crap, but its a budget pc, so you get what you pay for, youll get anything but performance and decency. ive never heard of krex or know anyone thats bought one so i cant say, but everyone ive seen buy an emachine has done nothing but replace/upgrade parts on it. buyer beware.

[shebang]

Thanks for the suggestions! So, I'll find out what they're using under the hood and then decide. Thanks for the help.

Any other suggestions are appreciated too!

karma++ to all who helped!

[stryder144]

eMachines was bought out by Gateway. That said, I did a lot of research before I allowed my Mom to buy an eMachine. If you look into it, the newest generation eMachines are not significantly cheaper than HP's. In fact, I've found some of the lower end HP's that were cheaper.

If you think about it, what you are getting is integration. Integration is not a bad thing, per say. But, it definitely limits what you can do with the machine. If you aren't going to be doing high-end stuff with the computer, eMachines is just as good as anyone else. Certainly their past products were flimsy and extremely cheap. Think about how Hyundai was crap when they first came to the US. Now, they will give you a good quality car, lots of nice options, a great warrenty, and still a low price. That is the same with eMachines.

Again, buyer beware is definitely appropriate in this case. I'm sure that you won't be too disappointed, unless you plan on using the computer for high-end gaming and number crunching.

Cheers

[shebang]

Thanks Stryder44. I'll be using it for the basic needs and gentoo. Basic Needs include music, programming. The only games i play are CLI based Tetris and Frozen Bubble.

Burntash, Krex is supposed to be a trustworthy store - i know chessforce bought his parts from there.

I've heard that Celeron Processors aren't very good so is it worth buying? If not, then I'll just get the AMD 2800+ which I'm looking forward to..

Thanks once again!

Sincerely,
Shebang

[capybara]

THE Problem with emachines is those integrated sound, lan, video chips
which are less likely to be supported by *nix than if you use standard
pci or agp cards which are well known and on your distros hcl
(hardware compatibility list)

[Dswissmiss]

Let me just join the general consensus by saying that after a few years at pcmech.com (a computer building website), I've never heard anything good about emachines, and people are always advised to stay away from them. This was a while ago though, and as stryder144 mentioned, they have been bought out by Gateway, so maybe their quality has become better. I would still suggest however to look into building your own pc. You can still use cheaper parts, but also have the option of continually upgrading in the future.

[Compunuts]

[quote author=capybara link=board=14;threadid=10011;start=0#msg90798 date=1101420518]
THE Problem with emachines is those integrated sound, lan, video chips
which are less likely to be supported by *nix than if you use standard
pci or agp cards which are well known and on your distros hcl
(hardware compatibility list)
[/quote]
Not true. That emachine in particular is running Thinzlinux ( IIRC ).