I bought 3 E Machines 500is in July of 2000.
The local Sams club offered the Etower 500is WITH a 15 inch Monitor for $400.00! My Aunt and sister, both of whom needed a new computer at the time, got in on the deal.
So,I bought three!

With a 500 Mhz Celeron processor its plenty fast for surfing
I would, however, suggest you upgrade from the standard RAM
The 500is comes with 32MB of RAM standard
RAM is cheap, I double mine to 64MB for 40 bucks.
UPDATE MARCH 2002: Upgraded RAM to 160 (added 128MB)

I play games on mine, so the front USB port is very useful
Of course you could use the USB with a digital camera etc.
There are 4 direct connect internet buttons at the top of the keyboard, sadly they only go to 4 predetermined sites.
They are not programable. There are also volume control buttons on the keyboard which is nice.

The speakers that come with the 500is are cheap! They are not amplified, and produce little sound even at maximum volume. However, a $40.00 pair of amplified speaker solved this problem! I recommend Labtec, they are inexpensive and sound great.

The hard drive is 4.3 GB, kindda skippy, but livable.
I added an external zip drive, for another hundered or so.

The 4 MB of video RAM is decent, unless you are into graphic intensive programs. But just fine for most games.

The modem is a 56 k v.90. The standard dialup. I have a cable modem through my local cable provider and pages load just as fast as I can click.

One downside is the lack of a DVD ROM. The 500is comes with a 40x CD-ROM.
But hey, what do you realy expect a DVD-ROM at this price point?

My 500is came with a 15 inch monitor in a bundle.
It works great, and even though I have seen better, it works nicely for you average computer user/surfer.
MONITIOR UPDATE: April 2002, Bought a new 17 inch KDS monitor from Sams. After a year and a half I had enough of the 15 inch e view. the dot pitch was not the best. Was starting to burn out my retina! Bought a KDS 17' works great with this E machine. Plug and Play compatible! Easy!

I opted for the additional insurance through Sams, just in case E-machines folded. They are still in business.
UPDATE: May of 2002, the originl 4GB Hard drive crashed.
Glad i bought the extended warrenty. They replaced it with a 80GB hard drive. No charge.

The other two E-machines have thus far had no problems.

I realize E-machines is toward the bottom of the computer food chain, but we have few complaints.
Just in case, I would suggest you buy the extra insurance on any e machine you buy.



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 400.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 501-600
RAM: 32
Internal Storage: CD-ROM
Hard Drive (GB): Under 4