Do the SDopers remember a PC brand called "Gateway? Are they the one and the same now known as “Emachines”? I thought Gateway went the way of the do-do bird! - Jinx
Heh! Cow-machines!
supervenusfreak is still using a 5-year-old cow-machine. Not that I can talk. My HP is almost 4 years old at this point…
Gateway bought out E-machines when their sales and Rep started nose diving.
They blew a lot of money on Brick & Mortar stores and when the downturn came and Dell slashed margins, Gateway could not compete with their manufacturing model. E-machines was a smaller company that was making good solid cheap machines cheaply. 
So Gateway bought them out to salvage their own company and relearn manufacturing with tighter margins.
Jim
So…you might say they bought the farm?
They just wish they were the farmer in the Dell.
I don’t know. When I bought a computer for my daughter’s riding coach, I researched them, and was not too impressed with their reported quality. They might have been better after Gateway bought them, but I’m not sure. The reviews said that a lot of their machines were seriously underpowered.
I had an E-machine once. It sucked.
Seriously underpowered is an understatment.
E-machines only stopped sucking once Gateway bought them. Beforehand, they were some of the worst pre-fabs out there.
I have an E-machine circa oh, 2002. Had Gateway taken over then? It’s quite nicely powered and when compared to other user’s machines on a kind of “rate your computer” site, it comes up as nearly perfect. 1.8 gig processor, 40g drive (small now, I know) but it does absolutely everything I need it to do. I got it from Fry’s (outpost dot com) for a nice price even then. I’ll probably buy another in the next year or so. Their support though is/was not-so-great.
What’s sucky is the aftermarket MS wireless keyboard/mouse setup I’ve got. The concept is excellent but the damn mouse musta got soda in it or something because I have to click sometimes 10x to get a positive click. I’ve screwed with the drivers, changed the settings, even assigned it as a “generic” wireless mouse, no damn help.
On January 30, 2004, Gateway announced its intent to purchase eMachines for $30 million in cash and 50 million shares of stock, valuing the deal at approximately $234.5 million.
Wiki
E-machines were low end or entry level machines. Ideally suited for Seniors as Internet Browsers / Word Processors. They made good second computers for households that had a “Power Computer” already. They were not for Gamers, college students or hobbyist like me.
Their ratings for reliability were good and their prices were very good.
The benchmarks were terrible. Translated they had a market niche. Gateway had lost theirs.
Jim
I remember when eMachines was the joke choices.
But this Christmas, two people I know separately bought computers so I had a chance to compare. The eMachines one is much nicer than the Compaq. (The manual sucks though.)
As a long time IT Pro, I would buy most Computers over Compaq. They haven’t been a top rated machine builder since maybe 1998. The merger with HP did not help quality or price.
I always recommend against them unless you enjoy repairing and maintaining the computer itself.
Jim
I was in Staples the other day an saw a name and logo on some PCs I had thought was long, loooong gone. It was “Cut the Baloney” - Northgate! :eek:
I just hope we never see Packard Bell again. I once spent 3 hours explaining all the basics for buying a computer. I had strongly recommended either a Dell or Gateway or a Local Mom & Pop Shop. (This was around '96 or ‘97’). Slow porcess of shopping online by modem. I told him “Just don’t buy a Packard or IBM Aptiva”.
He went to a Store and came home with a Packard. After the 3rd call for help, I told him, “Look, I don’t mind helping out, but when you specifically ignore my advice, I need to cut you off, Call Packard”.
Of course to myself I was thinking Call Packard Baa Haa haaa haaa.
Jim
I bought an E-machines laptop last year. Itentionally. No fooling.
Apparently their laptop division was separate from their desktop manufacturers… I was looking around for the best bang for the buck and while doing research I ran across the E-machines series of laptops and looked at them just for a laugh. Turns out they had some decent specs.
I then figured they were using second rate components… and I was surprised to see name brand stuff under the hood. I read around on the messageboards and the users of this model (the 6805) were extremely happy… So I took a chance and I’ll be damned if I’m not the proud owner of an E-machines laptop. So much so that a) I didn’t hide the big swoopy “e” logo on its top, and b) when someone says “E-Machines? You bought an E-Machines laptop” I turn into an evangelist.
I don’t know what Gateway’s done to the line, good or bad, since they bought 'em out but I’d buy another one in a heartbeat.
EZ
I suspect they were on the edge of bankruptcy at the time. I had a PB '486 machine, running Win 3.11, bought in the early '90s some time. It broke once during the warranty period, and a tech came to the house, on time, with the right components, and fixed it first shot. I retired it because of speed, not because it ever broke. But I know their rep, so I might have been lucky.
I looked at eMachines laptops too, but I found a better deal at Fry’s on a Toshiba. And I agree about the Compaq comments - never again. If faced with a choice between eMachines and Compaq, I’d buy an abacus. 
You were lucky. The Packard Bells were the worst major name PC ever.
They even used gray market parts inside sometimes. I experienced the 486’s also. They were using no name parts before no names were common. They would ship 486DX33 that were really 486SX33. Oops. They would correct it of course, but how many people ever caught on.
Well they’re long gone now. I should let Dead dogs rot.
Jim