Product Review: eMachines T5254

When my friend first told me that she had bought a new computer, I was overjoyed! Finally, she would stop calling me every few days to get her old one going again. At least, that's what I thought until she told me she had gotten an eMachine! I don't mean to put eMachines down, but I have never been overly impressed with them. To me, they have always been "disposable PCs". I realize that Gateway is the parent company of them, and Gateway does have some top line computers. However, eMachines has never been one of them. Until now......

As I started checking her new eMachine out, I began to realize that maybe they had finally come out with a PC that is equal to the Aspire M5100, Gateway GT5662, HP Pavilion a6400z and Inspiron 530. I mean, this eMachine even performs better than the others in a lot of ways and uses up to 20% less power while doing it!

The eMachines T5254 comes loaded with the Vista Home Premium operating system. To me, that is a drawback, but that is only because I am stuck on XP Professional!! If you have ever tried Vista, you'll probably love it. The T5254 has a dual-core 2.1-GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor which provides decent speed for everyday use and plenty of system memory is included with a 2 GB RAM stick. If you think that's not enough Ram, it has an extra slot so you can always add another stick.

The T5254 will take care of pretty much any day-to-day task from internet surfing, downloading, burning DVDs, etc. It comes with a dual-layer DVD+/-RW, a large 320 GB hard drive for storage, a media card reader, and 6 USB slots.

Now, on the negative side, the eMachines T5254 does not include features such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or a FireWire port. In my opinion, the biggest flaw with the T5254 is its built in, low grade nVidia GeForce 6150 SE video card which doesn't support DX10 or 3D graphics, but you can always install a better one to add a little gaming power.

The eMachines T5254 does offer room for upgrades. You can add a 3D graphic card or an extra SATA port allows you to add a secondary hard drive. There are two standard PCI slots, an extra RAM slot and an expansion slot for a second drive.

The T5254 is packed with 30-90 day trials of programs such as Napster, AOL and Norton Internet Security. These extra programs can slow your PC down, but if you want to, you can uninstall them. The desktop comes loaded with more icons than I like to see, but these can also be deleted.

Overall, I would say this is a really great desktop computer for the low retail price of $400. It is a well-rounded PC that would make a really nice second computer for almost anyone or a great beginning PC!