[musya]

I got a relative looking to buy a computer, I would personally build one but they want to buy one. So these are his three choices

Dell
Emachine
Compaq

I recommend the dell, but I hear the emachine pretty good too, whats all your guys take on this? The Compaq is the cheapest, followed by the emachine.

Thank you,
Musya

[no2pencil]

Buy from the manufacturer. That way you don't have to deal with 3rd party warranty, or return policy BS.

[Lemur]

Never trust a compaq, I see those far more often than I see any other computers... Dell is your best bet.

[musya]

He was leaning more towards emachine, but to me emachine is like the Hyundai of computers, anybody had bad experience with emachines here? as appose to dell?

[CharlieMay]

Yes,
E-machines are horrible. Slow hardware, faulty capacitors, cheap memory just to name a few. I've worked on more E-machines than I care to think about and one of the most common problems I've ran into are small hot-spots burned into the on-board video from over-heating. Everything powers up but the system doesn't boot. No Beeps no nothing. Closer examination shows a small spot on the on-board video processor chip. The next biggest problem was swelled capacitors. They're all around junk if you ask my opinion. I have 6 in my garage right now that have one of these two problems. 4 of them from 4 different people in the course of 1 week.

[no2pencil]

To be fair I've replaced faulty capacitors in more Dells than any other brand. I think that capacitors are an all around problem & shouldn't bare any example of craftsmanship by the computer manufacturer but by the motherboard manufacturer.

[musya]

...oh boy... I'm gonna leave him more confused than he is now. lol

[KYA]

I've had an emachines laptop since 2004, still kicking.

[BetaWar]

Dell are pretty good from what I have dealt with. My (personal) computer kicked the bucket recently, and it was a Dell, but it was also comming up on 7 years old, and we have 3 others that are the same age which haven't had a problem.

Personally, I like HP machines a lot at the moment, I have had 2 laptops by them and my current machine is an HP (both laptops still work, it is just that I got a newer (faster, better) one for college so my sister got my old one).

[calvinthedestroyer]

I would recommend:

1> Panasonic Tough Book
2> IBM Think Pad
3> Mac

And make sure you buy from the manufacturer! like www.ibm.com Do not buy from www.bustbuy.com

You can buy brand new computers right from the manufacturers that are a step Below TOP NOTCH, that are cheaper but still brand new.