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Product Review
[Voice Recognition and eMachines M5310] [Canon 6.3MP EOS Rebel Digital Camera] [Voice Over IP] [HP Pavillion ZD7000] [Radio Shack 6-in-1 Remote] [Palm Zire 71] [Perfect Notebook Part 2] [Perfect Notebook] [Do LCD's make a difference?] [Digital Camera Binoculars] [Maxtor Backup] [Apple iBook Part 2] [Apple iBook Part 1] [Sony Vaio Laptop] [Panasonic’s KX-TG4000B 4 Line, Multi-Cordless Handset] [Brother MFC-9700] [E-Machines] [Dual Monitors] [Sony Clie PDA] [IDE Raid Controllers] [Olympus C700 Digital Camera]
E-Machines
This really is my favorite part of
this newsletter. First of all, I have an excuse to buy something new
every month! Well I was going to talk about a new Multi-Function
printer we just got for the office, but that has been pre-empted for
this month. As much as I love to tinker in the back computer shop
getting computers to run right, I just don’t have any patience for
my own computers when they are not running correctly. When one of
our office machines is on the fritz, the whole office is down.
Most recently Sue’s computer started
giving us a problem. Just locking up when it felt like it. Our first
stab at solving the problem was to upgrade to Windows XP home.
Things were fine for a while but ultimately were not resolved. Just
about a month ago I decided to install XP Pro on a fresh drive and
reinstall everything. Things just got worse. Well after watching her
struggle with it and have it lock up several times while working
with a client, each time requiring not only her to reboot, but also
the server as it locked all the files she was using at the time, I
agreed to look at replacing it as soon as affordable.
I started looking at some of my
favorite sites,
www.tigerdirect.com,
www.geeks.com,
www.dell.com,
www.bestbuy.com,
www.circuitcity.com, etc. I
found what I thought to be the best deal at
www.tigerdirect.com, a P4
barebones with everything but the monitor, and an operating system
for about $550.00. It was really more than I wanted to spend, but I
just could not deal with the hassles of things not working right. I
started looking on the web some more and was astonished to find
myself looking at
www.walmart.com.
I’m almost embarrassed to say that Wal-Mart is where I found myself
going at 10:00pm that evening.
I have a few requirements when I look
for computers:
- upgradeability being at the top of
the list. If it cannot be upgraded, I don’t want it.
- With our job in particular, having
the ability to use a dual display video card is a must.
Well Wal-Mart had an Emachines AMD
1600+ on sale for only $598.00 What amazed me was that it was not
just the CPU but EVERYTHING, computer, keyboard, mouse, monitor,
speakers, software, even a CDRW, EVERYTHING for $598.00. I cannot
begin to build it for that price even when buying wholesale!
 I
really was skeptical, but Wal-Mart is very good about returns so I
decided to take a chance and bring it home, it is a business
deduction anyway right ;)? Once home it went together quickly and
easily. We were up and running in no time. The onboard video is
adequate for most everyday stuff, it has a big enough hard dive,
fast enough processor, and the added bonus of a CDRW is really nice.
Did I mention that it was only $598!
Sue was very pleased with the
machine…. Being a woman she tends to look more at what the machine
LOOKS like than how it runs (as long as it’s fast and works she
doesn’t care), but if it doesn’t LOOK good then it’s not worth her
money! She thinks this computer system is very pleasing to the eye.
 There
were some down sides. It only came with 128 megs of ram. Windows XP
likes 256 megs or more, and the monitor is only useable at 800x600
resolution. At 1024x768 it only supports a refresh rate of 60hz, I
need a minimum of 85hz or I get a headache. But seeing as I had
extra ram in the shop and Sue already had her nice dual monitors and
dual monitor video card, the down sides were not an issue.
All in all I would really recommend
this little computer to someone that needed a comprehensive upgrade
and had a decent monitor and was willing to spend an extra $50 for
some more ram. Frankly most would be just fine with the package as a
whole right out of the box, but if you are picky like me and want a
little more punch and a great monitor, look at the Sony deal at
Wal-Mart for $1198. This was out of my budget, but was a real
temptation. The Sony would be a true “out of the box” powerhouse
computer. Maybe next time…
Please send any questions about, or
ideas for, product reviews here at
Staff@dogriverdesign.com. |
