Worst Computer Manufacturer

[Fiddleford H. McGucket]

What in your experience is the worst Computer company as far as brand name computers are concerned?

-Puts unecessary "extras" that "Improve User Experience" that ultimately just clog the memory with pointles BS

- Inferior Hardware (Aside from basic CPU/processing power, more along the lines of Keyboards, Mice, Speakers, basic necesseties that are just done poorly

-Flat-out lies

- etc

["Gentleman" AJ Powell]

Hewlett Packard

Priced at the same as usual laptops, but they break easily & the software is also terrible. I have had 3 and after roughly a year, they all struggle to start up properly.

[Welfare Willis]

Nov 23, 2009 12:58:01 GMT -5 "Gentleman" AJ Powell said:

Hewlett Packard

Priced at the same as usual laptops, but they break easily & the software is also terrible. I have had 3 and after roughly a year, they all struggle to start up properly.

Agreed. I had a desktop for about 3 months before the thing started rebooting randomly. I'll shout it from the roof tops Hewitt Packards suck.

[Triple H buried SnS]

In the late 90's almost every major computer problem I encountered and was asked to fix was on a Compaq. It started becoming the first question I asked..."is it a compaq?".

I was only ever told "no" once.

I've stayed far away from them since. So no idea if they got better as the time past.

[Brother Coyote]

My first computer was a Packard Bell, consequently I win this thread.

[Deleted]

Dell hands down.

I have an HP and I've had minimal issues with it. Nothing that I haven't been able to fix, but most things I've had to fix I broke in the first place. My two big complaints about my HP were when I first got it I didn't get a backup disk, and the crap that was installed on it, but that is normal for most manufacturers. The backup disk was the biggest issue I had. I erased my hard drive on accident and it overwrote the partition that was used for my backup. I did this about two months after I had the computer and I would have had to pay for a disk, so I just "found" one.

[Bam Neeley]

I could say HP but since my laptop is 6 years old and it's been through a window one I wouldn't say it isn't durable. Sure the fan is noisy because the bearings have worn and the touchpad is broken as well.

So I'm going to say Acer because I have one of their monitors. It's the cheapest 23" model with VGA only input. If there's a small checker pattern somewhere on the screen it vibrates like crazy. And when you cold start it you get a nice gray edges on the screen.

[segaz]

Acorn Computers.

[Johawn]

ACER.

I had an Aspire 5315 for a couple years, and for about half of that time I was running it with Vista and all the "awesome features" that ACER shoves on there. It had 1GB RAM, and half of that was eaten by these features. I eventually saw the light and down(up)graded to XP. This, coupled with the features being gone, made it run about eight hundred and four thousand times faster.

When the time came to buy a new laptop I learned from my mistakes and bought...well, another ACER. But this one's better! Plus, the first thing I did was uninstall all the extra crap they shoved on it.

[Jay Peas 42]

Seriously, HP and Dell? Best Computer makers on the planet? Okay, this is going to be fun.

I go with either eMachines or compaq. eMachines was just terrible, it got to the point where I would just reinstal the hard drive every year, because something would invaribly break down. Compaq just suck. I remember friends with those who could never get them to work right. Now granted, this was the late 90s, there were no good computers then, there were "functional" computers. Even the vaunted Apple barely worked at that point, without Norton.

Palm had issues, (aside from being the worst managed company in tech, whose only real asset is their name at this point.) mainly because you can't replace the battery at home. Any maker of handheld devices that doesn't allow for that is just a toymaker, not a computer maker.

Honorable Mention: X-Box, but I am not really certain who makes them. I know Microsoft outsourced the job to IBM, but beyond that, no idea.

[Dragonfly]

HP by far. Any time that I needed/wanted to do something "processor heavy" on my old laptop (play TEW, run the TV tuner, record audio, etc), I had to use specialized external cooling.



No, not that, even those I made sure to run one at all times. One of these:



This is not a joke, either. I had to prop one of those in the back of the computer on high. There were times when even that wasn't enough. For those moments, I needed to whip out the big guns:



Biggest cool pad ever. (Again, not joking.)

[Error]

Wow, I have had my HP Laptop for going on 2 years now and the only problem I had was when I dropped it and, messed it all up. That and the power cord is shit.

Now the Dell I has was horrible. Couldn't run basic programs (Office, IE or Firefox) without getting scorching hot or slowing down to a crawl.

[The Line]

yeah, gonna have to say HP as well. My mom, for some reason, had some type of brand loyalty to HP, and from the time I was in 5th grade until I graduated high school, 3 had 3 distinct desktops that completely broke(our first one was fixed 3 times as well).

Not only do they make shotty components, they also sell a lot of outdated software/hardware as new and up to date, as well.

Dell is a little better, but not great. I bought a pretty expensive laptop(around $1300), and they barely put any gigs of RAM in it(2), which caused it to completely crash about a month into it(or it was Vista that caused it). Since then, its been mostly ok(other than the fact it has Vista as an OS).

[Vizier]

I don't like how the HP desktop I had had an irregular case size/shape so i couldn't actually upgrade it without getting a new case.

[texaswhopper]

My first computer was a Packard Bell, consequently I win this thread.

That was our first family computer as well. The Packard Bell was crap no doubt about it. It came with all this pre-packaged educational software in the box. SPACE! 3D BODY ADVENTURE! 3D DINOSAUR! The 1995 Groiler Encyclopedia! SPEED! Who can forget SPEED!?

OMG WOOTZ!

The Packard Bell helped me once again discover that I hated educational software. The only game I did like was the one that wasn't educational.....

And Now VWBT is proud to present the show the squashes reality like a bug. Thats right you better be ready to MEGA RACE!



Have a nice death baby!

[tartsonawire]

eMachines! Thing is, they're, of course, owned by Gateway, which aren't bad.

[darbus alan]

Nov 23, 2009 13:04:59 GMT -5 Triple H buried SnS said:

In the late 90's almost every major computer problem I encountered and was asked to fix was on a Compaq. It started becoming the first question I asked..."is it a compaq?".

I was only ever told "no" once.

I've stayed far away from them since. So no idea if they got better as the time past.

They remained shitty, and they passed on their crappiness to HP when they bought them out.

Honestly, I wouldn't call any of the major PC vendors "good." The Dells, Gateways, and HP's of the world have a host of problems that make upgrading components a pain and come installed with a ton of crapware that's annoying, taxes your system, and is also grating to get rid of. And with high-end vendors like Alienware, Falcon Northwest, etc. you're paying a huge premium for a brand name and and, most of the times, an ugly excessive case.

Best way to go is custom-built, either doing it yourself or getting someone to do it for you. They tend to be more reliable and cheaper than the major vendors. And you get more bang for your buck on top of that.

[Gopher Mod]

My worst experience was a Systemax laptop. I got it in August of 2006, and within 1 month I couldn't even play most of my games (since DirectX broke almost right of the gate).

I eventually stopped using it in November of that year in favor of a HP Pavilion a6230n desktop. The desktop still exists today (though in a different case; better cooling), and that laptop wound up being sold in 2008.

Otherwise, I haven't had a bad experience with a computer... outside of a standard monitor from Systemax, but that was my fault.

[boiledewokthe3rd]

Nov 23, 2009 13:20:29 GMT -5 Brother Coyote said:

My first computer was a Packard Bell, consequently I win this thread.

I used a Packard Bell iMax mini a few days ago, not a pleasant experience.

[Janitor From Mars]

Dell

My computer is 5 years old and already, I had to replace the video card, hard drive and now the monitor just crapped out.

I have a much older computer (Compaq) that has never needed replacement of any component.