Cheap Price, Cheap components
Written: Jan 26 '00 (Updated Jan 27 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: very inexpensive
Cons: poor performance, terrible service record
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| Cyberllama's Full Review: eMachines etower 433i PC Desktop |
Normally anything that helps bring new users to the internet is a good thing. Emachines, while certainly filling that role, is not the way to go. Emachines such as the 433i (and the 400i3 and more recently the 466is) sell for 475 dollars and come with a 75 dollar rebate; combine this with the 400 dollar instant savings for signing up for 3 years of internet access and you've got yourself a free computer. But don't be deceived, this "free" computer isn't worth the price.
I personally do not own an emachine; I work in the computer department in a store that sells them. Emachines, because of their low prices, is the brand we sell more of than any other brand. However, the sad fact is that we everyday send many returned, defective units back to emachines because of problems their users had right out of the box (the most common of which seems to be the dead modem). These returns do not represent all of the emachines which are shipped back, simply the ones during the first 90 days of ownership. After 90 days (during which time our store will ship them back for the customer), it becomes the customer's responsibility to send them system back to emachines (unless they purchased some sort of service coverage) at their own expense(according to the emachines' warranty text the cost is a fixed rate of $50). Emachines does not service these returns, but rather they simply ship out a new computer in exchange.
Why, you might be asking, would they do that? It seems that a policy like that combined with a large number of units being returned would not be a profitable strategy. Well the trick is this: Your "new" emachine could very well be someone else's machine that was sent in for service after it (after emachines had fixed whatever the problem was it was sent in for, I assume). You see, emachines does not always put new parts in their systems, they admit freely that their systems (including new ones sold in stores) use refurbished parts. So if an emachine is sent back with a dead modem, more than likely emachines will just slap a new modem in it, format the hard drive, and ship it out to whoever needs a new computer.
As for the system itself? Well if it works with no problems, consider yourself lucky. However, service problems aren't emachines only problems. Their performance is also terrible (personal opinion based on usage, not from any sort of actual benchmarks) which I suspect is because of the usage of low-quality and refurbished parts. Not to mention that they are the only systems still widely available with a meager 32 megabytes of ram (some upgrade models do feature 64 for the same price as the 32 megabyte models, for instance there is a 32 megabyte 433i and a 64 megabyte version). Nearly every other manufacturer has moved on to 64 as a standard (and right so if you ask me).
Bottom Line: If you need a cheap pc, look elsewhere. A cheap PC that doesn't work isn't worth it.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Cyberllama
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Member: Ryan
Location: Indianapolis, IN
Reviews written: 35
Trusted by: 11 members
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