When is the last time anyone bought a major-brand computer?

A

AdamNesvick

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I'm just wondering this, as I haven't had one since my first pentium, a compaq deskpro Pentium 133 (Had a voodoo1 and 128MB EDO!). This was back in ummm uhhh, 96 I think.

I'm talking large OEM's, not boutique builders, as thats about the same as building your own.
 
Last one I bought was around '96 as well. A dual 604e Umax Spuermac S900

Man that thing was sweet back in the day, dual monitors, SCSI raid, running OS8 and Yellow Dog linux. I built my first business around that machine doing graphic design and building websites. Actually just finally dumped the case about 2 years ago. :cool:
 
Last time i bought a brand desktop was 1987, a Sanyo 16 plus. 16 for 16 bit, i think it was a 386, 512 k of ram no hard drive, two 5 1/2 flooppies, 4 color display. I used to play Grand Prix and Test Drive. I as 10 years old :D.

Notebooks i've bought brand, a Gateway and a Packard Bell everything else i bought by parts.
 
Commodore PC-30 III :eek:
It was a 286 with 1MB of memory and a 40MB drive.

Now all my brand-name boxes are other peoples throwaways... IBM, Packard Bell, Compaq, AST, Dell, HP...

I will likely go brand-name soon with the Compaq latop I've got my sights on.
 
I bought a TI994a in about 1982. I have either built my own, or used hand me downs from my brother since then. I mostly played parsec and other games that my brother wrote. The machine had no hard drive or floppy drive. Only a slot for cartridges and you could store data or probrams on a regular cassette tape attached to the machine.
Ribs
 
My friend just dropped $5-6k on a new watercooled alienware....something like an FX-62 and a single 7950GX2. He's always built his computers in the past, so I have no idea why he dumped so much cash on this one.
 
Never did, had my first PC built to spec by a small local shop about 13 years ago and when it needed upgrades I had them do it for me.
After a few years I learned how to do it myself and never looked back.

Well, to be honest I did buy an Atari STe way before my PC days... and had a secondhand C64 (modded to have the keyboard external) before that.
 
I bought an Alienware in 2001 - i cannibalized it in 2003 to make my first scratch built, and I've never looked back.
 
I got a laptop, but the last desktop I bought was an IBM 486DX2/50. 50mhz it was a beast back then, top of the line. I would rather build my own, its fun. ;)

 
I got an eMachines W4885 back April 2004 from Walmart. Was the first brand new brand name PC i've owned. Had a 2.8GHz P4 with a 400MHz fsb.
 
Dell E1705...2 weeks ago?

as far as desktops go, not since 1999. First, and only. Closest I've come since then is either getting major brand PCs as freebies, or Shuttle barebones. Otherwise all my towers have been from scratch.
 
I have never had one. Started out with a custom system in 1996 (I didn't build it myself, didn't know anything about it as a 10 year old :p) and worked my way up through custom system after custom system. First one I built completely on my own was a xp 2100+ system about 5 years ago, and have been working my way up ever since.
 
Technically speaking, never for me. Unless you count my mom's computer that I used as a kid till I built my own. She bought that back in 95/96. Hers is an Acer K6 (note, not K6-2) with 16 megs EDO and a 2 gig hard drive. I think the CD-ROM was like 12x or 16x

Damn thing still runs. Add ons are the network card and the RAM, which was upgraded to 64MB. And yes, integrated graphics.

It just won't die! It runs like complete ass, but it won't die!
 
I bought a Gateway back in 2003 as an upgrade to my old Dell I got when I started college. That was before I was really into the whole do-it-yourself thing.

I am planning on buying a macbook pro in a few months though :-p
 
I bought a Dell Celeron at a computer expo in 2002 for 450$, I still have it, and it still works. The only things that I have upgraded are the Power supply, added 512 more ram, a dvd burner, and a larger hard drive. I am going to go a complete format/ reinstall and give it to my mom, cause all she needs a computer for is typing and she wants to install some quilting/ needle work programs. I think I will probably get her a printer and a small LCD, cause the CRT I got with it, is going bad..
 
Asian Dub Foundation said:
last one i bought was an IBM Aptiva with AMD K6-2 333mhz with 3Dnow! technology

Click to expand...

Hey i had that exact computer when it came out. I was sooooooooooo impressed with that.Darn thing had integrated graphics and for the life of me i kind of forgot what OS i was running but i think it was windows 98.
 
July 2000. A HP Pavilion PIII 650 with integrated graphics and no AGP. I eventually got a Vodoo 5 5500 PCI for it. That was when I was young and stupid...
 
Last one that i bought was early last year i believe it was a dell 4700 or somethen like that. I turned around and built my own a few months later haha gotta love wasting cash, but i turned around and sold it for exactly what i payed so it was all good in the end.
 
Vaio TGN last september. $1700 Got it cause my finacee wanted a very small light laptop. Wireless WAN is cool as well.
 
Last PC I bought was an HP a few years ago. Eventually the motherboard died and I built my own PC after that.

Bought a Dell notebook a few months ago, but I'll never buy another major-brand PC. I like building my own far too much.
 
Besides notebooks(which I've bought a few and built some) and some apples I have not had a name brand machine since like 94 when I got a compaq desktop. Mind you I've picked up a few seconardy systems on the cheap and like resold them or used them as backups. I've also bought like cheap emachines 2+ ghz systems in the last few years for family and shit where I've just replaced the psu and added ram(full format and setup right). I mean they worked great for basic use and were too cheap to make it worth building my own. For work I ordered a few dells yesterday and have to order some more later in the week.
 
Packard Bell 486 DX2 50Mhz
8MB Ram
520MB Hard drive
1MB Video adapter
16Bit audio
$2,500.00 1994

God damn I liked that pc. In it's day it was grease lightning.
 
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