e-Machines have done well with the handful that I've had people buy and the one I bought.
e-Machines got bought up by Gateway so I don't know what the quality is now.
My father bought a 2.4 Ghz/40 Gb/256 Mb/XP Home machine, a 17" monitor, an IBM color printer (with sample size ink cartridges
), and a color flat bed scanner for
$399 after three different rebates 16 months ago during Christmas. It's still working fine.
The laptop that I use for the university classes I teach is an e-Machine. I use it primarily to do PowerPoint slides but it's also used for packet sniffing and as a test bed for virus infections and trojan installations
. Works like a charm. The Dell I have costs twice as much and is just about as fast. No Wi-Fi in the Dell though
and the e-Machine has a nice wide display good for DVD's and the new Office XP format where there's always a large tool bar on the right-hand side of the screen (until you dismiss it)