Packard Bell Multimedia Series

Packard Bell in some language must mean crap. Architecture is so propitery it was not funny. I owned two of these pieces of junk, the first was not that bad but getting support was a nightmare.

Last year, for some odd reason, I was in love with Packard Bells and hated Dell's guts. Mainly, it was over the appearance of the frame, and the software that came with the systems. Now, I've come to my senses and realized how much crap Packard Bells are. The one I had, fortunately, was not. My dad bought it in '97, and it worked generally flawlessly for about 5 years or so. I loved the multimedia software and hardware with it. It had a great appearance, which is one of the things that caused me to become so obessed with PB's last year. However, most PB's, I've heard, break down soon after being used. I've read many stories about their crappy performance and their inability to be upgraded or repaired. I learned that myself last year when I tried to replace the faulty motherboard. 2 years ago, I took my PC, which had been busted for a year, to CompUSA. They diagnosed the motherboard as being the problem, and ordered a new Packard Bell board. Once I got the computer back, it ... Read more

I thought they were just about the worst desktop PC's. Yes, they're cheap but I think they cut corners in components way too much. I had a lot of hardware conflicts when I tried to upgrade it.

I have this computer. Very slow. The monitor went bad, mostly green and yellow.

Better known as Packard "Hell". Upon buying this as my first computer I discovered that I made a big mistake. In four weeks I went through three brand new computers and all of them either froze up constantly or the features didn't work.

Terrible customer service, cheap parts, somewhat competitive prices. For someone looking to buy a computer: look elsewhere! They used to place various components of the computer (i.e. modem, sandcard, graphics, CS card) in one piece of hardware so if one went bad you would have to replace it all. Bad Packard Bell!!! (tsk, tsk, tsk)

Ridiculously slow! Proprietary ports, terrible tech support. Need I say more?

Good performance as well as stability (hardly ever crashes). Problem lies with the proprietry hardware which creates a difficult upgrade.

Historically Packard Bell has had it's share of problems. Their mother boards and cases are properties, so if something goes wrong, the customer is forced to buy a replacement product through PB, often paying more than for an equivalent standard item. If a PB system fails, restoring it is next to impossible.

I like the Packard Bell Multimedia desktop because it's user friendly. Gives programs that are easy to use and useful for students. Doesn't take up much space. It's especially user friendly!

I do not recommend that anyone buy a PacBell computer. PacBell makes their computers well for a short period of time, but when you want to upgrade, the inside of their computers makes it impossible to upgrade, so you have to go out and buy a whole new computer.

It came with a good monitor and printer package. There are many problems though. It frequently crashes, and fatal errors often occur. When on standby, it doesn't respond when you move the mouse or type (it's supposed to!).

Packard Bell makes a decent user friendly computer.

My first computer was Packard Bell andfrom experience I know that these are tough machines. When my friends complained of computer crashes, I never had that problem or any problem for that matter. But now that I'm in need of a faster computer, i'm going to need to move on. They may be strong but sometimes Packard Bell can be stingy with the performance. They use semi-recent processors and parts. But at least for me, they got outdated really fast. Make sure you have what you need.

This system gave me nothing but problems. The mother board failed twice. The master CD was faulty and upgrades were impossible, sometimes because of their strange configurations.

We have this model in our offive, and although it's pretty slow, it's very effective in helping us do our business. We run some finance software on it. I like the design of it.

It's very easy to use. I like it because I am quite computer illiterate.

This computer has been constantly breaking down. The sound card has gone off, and I've had to replace it twice. The CD-Rom has also broke down. I paid way too much money to have to deal with these kinds of problems. I definitely do not recommend this brand.

Good computer. Comes with neat features and programs. Easy to setup and hook up to the internet, and has lots of help options.

This computer sucks! You cannot upgrade. If outdated, you have to throw everything away.

This desktop is not bad. I basically use it to write essays and play video games. It's not very fast, but reliable. You can use this for just regular computer activities.

I have owned a Packard Bell and three of my other friends have owned Packard Bells and everyone has had a terrible experience. On my computer and one of my friends, the Hard Drive failed and we lost all our information. What's even worse is that not only the information was lost, but the hard drive could not be formatted. It was a total loss. Another friend had her computer hang up almost everytime she booted up. On top of it all, their customer service is slow and not very helpful.

Though Packard Bell is an established name, I found their computers to be horribly incompatable with other hardware, and an overall pain to deal with. I bought a scanner and video cam and I had the hardest time trying to hook it up to my PC. I had to wait on those telephone service lines for a long time before I fixed it. Go for something more compatable!

Top performance from the hardware. The company is not very strong on customer service or post-purchase free buys.

This is a reliable computer. It has a great monitor, smooth, fast graphics and it is pleasent sounding.

Damned near impossible to upgrade. Take the case off and it's like someone threw spaghetti inside it. Very hard to put in RAM. Just cheap hardware all round.... Not reccommended!

Any idiot who buys a Packard Bell deserves to lose all of their money.