14 DAY TRIAL // Before you start asking "who on earth eMachines is", let me tell you that the company has been living under its own rock, and the few times it surfaced, it released common system configurations that could be qualified as worthless. No wonder you haven't heard about them. The unveiling of its latest models, the T5246 and T3642, is one of the fewer occasions when the Gateway subsidiary manages to impress.
The eMachines T3642 desktop system is a multimedia-oriented PC, built around an AMD Athlon 64-bit CPU running at 2.6GHz. It comes with 1GB of DDR2 dual-channel memory, 250GB of SATA-II hard-disk storage, Nvidia GeForce 6100 graphics, DVD DVD?R / RW SuperMulti drives, and 6-channel 5.1 audio. It sells for just $349.99, but the price does not cover the monitor.
The T5246 comes with improved hardware. Apart from the common guts shared with the "younger brother" T3642, the system is built with 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ dual core CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 400GB hard drive. The system is a little more expensive ($429.99) but the price difference covers for the improved performance. The monitor is also not shipping with the system, so you may pick your own model if you haven't done so already.
And, since it's a press release, here's the quote:
"eMachines desktops have always provided tremendous bang-for-the buck in both value and performance," said Glenn Jystad, Gateway?s senior manager of desktops. "Our newest systems deliver on that promise, providing our customers with the power and capabilities to make their computer experience enjoyable and productive."
Both systems come with a pre-installed distribution of Windows Vista Home Premium and a 60-day trial of Norton security. All in all, the systems are not bad, given their tiny price tag, but since neither of them succeed in astonishing the user, wouldn't it be better for the customers to build their own system from ground up? It's just a suggestion you should be munching over.