Hi guys, I work inside of a big retail store (can't say which) and I'd just like to give some small advice to budget minded people looking to purchase new computers:
do NOT buy an emachines desktop. they almost al come with bestec power supplies, most of which burn out within 3-4 years. I can't count how many people have brought me emachines that just stopped working and it ended up being a bad psu. Also, they usually have horrible quality motherboards (usually with red pcb, which has always been bad in my book) that die along with the psu's.
current gateway laptops are horrible quality as well. most of them have a strange issue where they can't find drivers for basic usb devices like mice or flash drives. also, their internals die/stop working/fail at random. I know a few people that bought on of these new (t-/m-/p- series laptops) and they have LOTS of issues.
The new HP laptops seem to have lots of issues with their mobos. only one i haven't seen much of is the tx- series.
the sony laptops with the golf ball texture (nxxx series i believe, where xxx is a number) also have lotss of issues with mobos.
Everything else is mostly ok, but these above mentioned units have been flying onto my workbench faster than I can count. hope this helps!