eTower 667ir A great price on a nice PC
Written: Apr 21 '01 (Updated Apr 21 '01)
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Pros: Incredible bang for the buck.
Cons: Limited RAM expandability: 2 DIMMS slots
The Bottom Line: My previous eMachines tower has held up as well as the $3k Quantex system that I bought the same day, and is the best bang/buck value on the market.
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| idis144's Full Review: eMachines etower 700irx PC Desktop |
This is an epinion on the eMachines 667ir. There wasn't a listing for it so I'm filing it here with the eTower 700irx, which has a faster celeron and DVD, that's it.
This is my second eMachines box in our family. I also have a 2 year-old eTower 400i2 that my wife used to use until we bought the 667ir. Now, the kids have mommy's old eMachines rig for Reader Rabbit.
I purchased the 667ir at Sam's Club, where it was bundled with an eMachines 15" monitor for an astoundingly low price of $499 for the pair. All the other eMachines dealers in town were selling JUST the PC for $599 AFTER $50 rebate, so I knew that I had to spring for the great bundle that Sam's had put together. I took the unopened monitor to another store, (previous eMachines monitor croaked after 6 months) returned it, and paid the difference for a 17" NEC MultiSync 75 ($179 after rebate) Total cost: $549 for the whole rig with a good 17" monitor.
eMachines does a great job of supplying plenty of documentation, licenses and backup CD's with their PCs. The included large, 2-sided poster would easily guide even the greenest novice through setup and internet connection.
Windows ME setup was uneventful, and there was a talking wizard avatar to help granny-types figure out how to work a mouse, etc..I skipped the wizard. I spent the rest of the afternoon installing another 64 MB RAM card, Norton System Works and setting up networking between the old and new eMachines to transfer files. I was very happy both with the speed of the 667ir and the overall quality of the case and components. The included RAM was even "brand name" -Centon- which is surprising at this price point.
Anyway, to wrap this up, you can certainly spend exponentially more money on a PC than this and get measurably better performance. But if you browse eBay awhile, you'll see what only 6 months of aging can do to the dollar value of a formerly "bleeding-edge" performance pc. Depreciation of 50% is common in that amount of time, and even if you don't sell, 2-3 years of advancing software and operating systems without backwards compatibility will quickly leave you with a formerly $3,500 now $100 value PC.
I feel the best way to own a PC these days is to buy a sub-$1,000 system every year and-a-half or so. That way you are working with the latest OS, have reasonably advancing CPU performance, and have something left in your bank account at the end of the day. My $0.02
The eMachines is a good performer and an excellent value.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 499
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 601-700
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
idis144
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Member: Eric
Reviews written: 4
Trusted by: 1 member
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