leeniep: Re: the $400 eMachines PC. I have one, and like it a lot. for
$400, you get a celery 233MHz, and for $500 you get a chip in the 300+MHz
range. For an extra $100, you get a monitor (I don't know about the
monitor - had one already).
Strengths:
Cheap. I don't know how the company is making any money off this
machine.
Simple. I repartitioned the disk, so I reloaded the drive image
by booting off the included restore CD and letting it reload the image.
Reasonably complete system. On the hardware side, it has all the
requisites and a lot of the frills - sound card, CD that played through
the sound card, AGP video, USB, game port (front-mounted, no less). On
the software side, it had a bunch of ISPs ready to go, Win98 and
MSWorks. Open the box, plug it in (all the connectors are labeled
clearly, and the mouse and keyboard are color-coded), enter your serial
number, and you're up.
Did I mention cheap?
Weaknesses
Cramped insides: only 1 drive bay, and only 3 slots (one taken up
by the winmodem). Good for a non-techie, but as one of the mechanics
along the information superhighway, I like a machine that gives me room
to add stuff.
Linux support. The Video chip is ATI Rage IIc, which is supported
only by XF86 3.3.1, so I've not yet got it working (most linuxes only
ship with XFree86 3.2 something). It works as a standard SVGA chip, but
you lose the graphics acceleration. The soundcard is _not_ supported,
even if you load the driver in DOS and then load in Linux.
Winmodems are yucky. See above. =)
Careless setup. The 3GB HD was VFAT'd, but only reported itself
as a 2GB. Dunno why. The Primary ATA cable was connected to the HD, but
had only 1 connector. The secondary ATA cable went to the CD, but had
the second connector. If ever I get a HD, I want it on the first IDE
channel.
Minor nit, but the speakers are not worth the desk real estate.
Still, in my mind, all the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses, and
the box is definitely a good buy.