On 12/20/2010 7:59 PM, Von Fourche wrote:
A relative of mine needs a new tower PC and some other relatives are
chipping in to buy her a low priced one. We found
an E Machine. It comes with Windows 7. I'm on XP and know nothing of
anything beyond Windows 7. I know my Dell is rock solid.

It comes with an AMD Sempron 145 2.8GHz processor and 2GB of RAM.

Will my relative get decent performance from this kind of machine? All she
does is surf the net, pay bills, and do email, and maybe watch video on
netflix. Her son does gaming on his x-box along with netflix.


This PC tower is going for around $295 at Wal Mart.

Thanks



$298 walmart emachines EL1352G-01w with amd sempron 145 (passmark 916),
2gb (1gb in each of two available slots), 500gb 7200rpm sata, 16x dvdrw,
geforce 6150se graphics (g3dmark 53), media card reader, gigabit
ethernet, windows 7 home premium 64, 1 year warranty (unclear if it is
on site).
http://www.walmart.com/ip/eMachines-...G-01w/15062989

$349 dell inspiron 570 (shipped free) with amd anthlon x2 240 (passmark
1591), 3gb (1gb in three of four available slots), 500gb 7200rpm sata,
16x dvdrw, ati hd4200 graphics (g3dmark 147)), media card reader,
gigabit ethernet, windows 7 home premium 64, 1 year on site warranty
http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-57...d=inspiron-570

the $350 dell is their lowest cost machine and it is a good entry level
configuration. but there is no mistaking that $350 is both $50 and 16%
more than $300. what it buys you is a 50% faster processor, a 300%
faster video card, and little more memory which helps the overall
experience with windows 7. all said it gets you a machine that will
potentially have a longer life cycle since it is faster to begin with
and because it is more upgradable. it can support some amd quad core
processors and has 4 memory sockets instead of the emachines 2 and one
is available/empty (with the emachines you would have to remove a memory
module before you had an available socket to add a larger capacity
module). it is also pretty easy to dismiss the quality of the emachines
based on their history but that would not be my biggest concern. but -
you can probably walk into the walmart and walk out with the emachines
the same day where-as if will take a week to ten days to for the dell to
arrive. ordered on just like this on 12/11, was told it would be
delivered by friday 12/17, and it arrive on monday 12/20.
fwiw, often staples has excellent deals on low cost hp machines, but not
always. and individual staples have unadvertised close out deals and
floor model deals that are some of the best values arround for low cost
system. good luck.