The Packard Bell nightmare is back

[Hitman]

Some of you may remember in the 90's there was this company, Packard Bell that made propitiatory computers that sucked really bad. They were probably the cheapest computers you could by so lots of people had them. It almost never failed if someone had a computer problem and called me over to help them out, they had a damn Packard Bell. Well to my knowledge several years ago this company went out of business and E-machine took over as the crapy computer king.

Well I was in Saturn (Like Circuit City or Best Buy) yesterday and I saw a Packard Bell computer. I had to look twice cause I haven't seen that name on a computer in years. Sure enough they are back and looking very Gateway. Here is there website.

[DeanOlicious]

Ugh, I think they actually went out of business after they were severely fined for selling comps to black listed nations. Certain countries, mainly middle eastern countries, are blacklisted by the U.S. so that you can't sell certain tech grade equipment to them. This includes all gen's of nightscopes, gaming consoles, ballistics armor, and computers among other things. They used to make a huge deal about it when I worked tech support at Dell. (Nothing like remembering the competitions big mistakes eh?) It's too bad they're back around, I remember seeing some news stories on them sticking refurbed parts in new machines.

[Hitman]

This Wiki explains why I saw it yesterday.

Originally Posted by Wiki

Packard Bell withdrew from the US market entirely in 2000, although it continues to be a popular brand in Europe as Packard Bell Europe (PBE) and holds third place in terms of consumer sales

and this explains why they now look like an Emachine/Gateway.

Originally Posted by Wiki

In September 2006, Packard Bell was bought by John Hui, the former owner of eMachines who sold eMachines to Gateway on January 30, 2004.

[Computer-Ed]

Wow Commodore and Packard Bell both coming back and both in Europe, I guess the French are not picky about their PCs :) LOL

[pc_guy]

Same thing happened to NEC.

I don't think PB can be that bad today, can it?

[Quakindude]

The first computer I bought as an adult was a Packard Hell. I attribute my quest for computing knowledge to that company as I was always working on mine. I remember my 70 megabyte, yes, I said MEGAbyte, HDD going out after a couple months. PB sent out a guy who put in a 110Mb HDD. I was excited!

PB did get into trouble, IIRC, for putting refurbed parts in new machines. They exited the US market not too long after that.

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by pc_guy

Same thing happened to NEC.

I don't think PB can be that bad today, can it?

I don't know the guy the Owned Emachines now owns Packard Bell. Emachines weren't exactly known as top of the line.