eMachines Desktop PC with AMD Athlon(TM) Processor 2800+ (T2825)

Rating:
Summary: Still great...
Review: Here is my six month check up for this computer. After 6 months of daily use (6+ hours daily) the computer is still running great. I have burned it in (for anyone who doesnt know that is when you run the cpu for an extended period of time to test the reliability of the computer) and that went wonderfully. High priority for 10 hours and no problems. No hardware problems whatsoever. Pop in a good graphics card (noone should use integrated video GPU's unless you only want to run Microsoft word) and you have yourself an extremely capable machine. The nforce2 chipset motherboard FIC AU31 combined with the AMD Athlon XP 2800+ makes for an extremely quick machine. At 6 months doing great. These new emachines lineup's are really quality computers. The manufacturers involved, FIC, Western Digital (HD), NVidia etc make this a great choice for a powerful cost efficient computer.

Rating:
Summary: Still great...
Review: I bought an emachine T2825 from Circuit City on January 1, 2004. At first I was totally impressed by the look and feel of the PC. 120GB, 5 USB ports, CD-RW, 512ram was more than I had hoped for. The price was great too. Yep! I was happy about my purchase. (hadn't bought a PC in a while) Unfortunately, my new found happiness was short-lived. The hard drive crashed after one month of use. Putting a new hard drive in, for the technically inclined person, is not a problem. As for me, well I'm definitely not a techie person. So I took the PC back to Circuit City (CC) on 2/16/04 and complained. The manager decided to help me out by shipping it out to their techie people in PA. (I shop at CC all the time) The manager said he would put a rush on it. Yeah right. My PC stayed in NY for one week before it was shipped out to their PA facility. When CC techies finally called, they left a computerized message on my answering machine saying that the hard drive needed to be replaced. (Well duh! that's what I told them in the first place.) So, CC techies contacted emachine and ordered the part from them. They told me it would take 10-14 business days to get the hard drive from Utah to PA. Argh!!! So here I sit, many weeks later, with no computer. My PC is still in PA having a nice vacation while my hard drive is in Utah taking the scenic route back to PA. Moral of this story? Should have bought another Compaq. Owned one for 8 years with no problem. I had the hard drive upgraded and gave it to my younger sister before she went off to college. Too bad for me. But at least my sister is happy with my old compaq.

Rating:
Summary: Emachine T2825
Review: I bought an emachine T2825 from Circuit City on January 1, 2004. At first I was totally impressed by the look and feel of the PC. 120GB, 5 USB ports, CD-RW, 512ram was more than I had hoped for. The price was great too. Yep! I was happy about my purchase. (hadn't bought a PC in a while) Unfortunately, my new found happiness was short-lived. The hard drive crashed after one month of use. Putting a new hard drive in, for the technically inclined person, is not a problem. As for me, well I'm definitely not a techie person. So I took the PC back to Circuit City (CC) on 2/16/04 and complained. The manager decided to help me out by shipping it out to their techie people in PA. (I shop at CC all the time) The manager said he would put a rush on it. Yeah right. My PC stayed in NY for one week before it was shipped out to their PA facility. When CC techies finally called, they left a computerized message on my answering machine saying that the hard drive needed to be replaced. (Well duh! that's what I told them in the first place.) So, CC techies contacted emachine and ordered the part from them. They told me it would take 10-14 business days to get the hard drive from Utah to PA. Argh!!! So here I sit, many weeks later, with no computer. My PC is still in PA having a nice vacation while my hard drive is in Utah taking the scenic route back to PA. Moral of this story? Should have bought another Compaq. Owned one for 8 years with no problem. I had the hard drive upgraded and gave it to my younger sister before she went off to college. Too bad for me. But at least my sister is happy with my old compaq.

Rating:
Summary: Beware gamers
Review: I have read glowing reviews about this kind of emachine, but obviously not my emachine. I have had to "restore" the operating system 6 times in 9 months, twice in the last two days. Let me redefine the word 'restore." That has nothing to do with the kind of operating system restoration I was ever used to. Using the disks provided with the 2825, you have to wipe the drive clean. Yes, as in reformat, reload, and re-install everything you want to run. Oh, and when you do your updates, don't for any reason, install the new xp service pack or you'll have to re-run everything, all over again. All this so that I can run Half Life 2 - total run time in the past 2 days? One half hour.

By the way, they do offer another kind of restore disk for those who don't mind working with DOS - Since I built my first computer and programmed it in DOS, that didn't scare me. But the disk comes with NO instructions, of course, they will e-mail instructions to you, but it's hard to get e-mail - WHEN YOUR COMPUTER IS DOWN!

But you needn't worry about that, because even after you can get the instructions (on another computer of course), they refuse to help you in any way. The Woman I talked to said "we are not paid to walk you through the process" to use the original restore CD's, and not to complain.

So, this is not a complaint.

However...

it is something for you to consider.

Rating:
Summary: Affordable, yet powerful...
Review: This eMachines T2825 is power packed and breaks away from the general misconception of emachines low quality computers. First off, the case is not flimsy, it is nice and sturdy and very modern looking. The blue halo around the powerbutton is nice. The computer is very powerful, featuring a AMD Athlon XP 2800+ which runs at 2.09GHz. The 2800 moniker means it should run at about intel 2.8GHz. Also has 512mb or 333mhz ddr ram which is supported by the mainboard. The processor's FSB (Front Side Bus) and memory both run at 333mhz giving the computer good throughput. The mother board is an FIC AU31 custom board featuring the nVidia nForce2 Crush18G chipset, giving the T2825 plenty of speed and advanced features such as AGP8x, USB2.0 and Dolby 5.1 sound. The built in graphics are more than good enough for average user and light gamer, however serious graphics people will want to utilize that extra AGP 8x slot. The mother board auto switches over to the agp slot when a card is plugged into it, so you dont need to manually disable the built in GeForce4 MX. I personally recommend BFG video cards. I purchased an Asylum FX 5600 Ultra video card for my emachines T2825 and Play games such as Halo, Medal of Honor:AA, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Half Life series quite comfortably with amazing graphics detail and speed. Despite emachines past record, this new machine(in my eyes) has redeemed them from a past of failure into a real competitor with a computer I can turn into what I want it to be. I love the machine and plan to buy another emachines for my next computer in between my life of building computers. By the way, if you price out the parts in this emachine, you will see that it is a great value for some quality hardware. Hope this helps any emachines skeptics.