E-machines has merged with Gateway. Believe it or not, E-machines came out #2 to IBM in desktops and Gateway was #2 in notebooks (above Dell, HP/Compaq, Toshiba and Sony at the bottom) in the recent PC magazine survey.
E-machines does not have many notebooks compared to desktops but I have had no problems with 2 desktops I have owned from them.
I assume you are looking at the Athlon 64 64bit cpu e-machines notebook. That is a good option for the future as the operating system (Microsoft Longhorn) will go 64bit in 2006-07.
The only other mainstream alternative to an Athlon 64 cpu notebook is one from Compaq and 1 from HP (same system, different appearance).Note that hpshopping.com has a $100 custom rebate, and other discounts like a 6% student discount (APP), etc if you are qualified. They also have 1 year no interest.
The smaller guys some times come up w/ good prices - like emachine or acer compared to for e.g Dell (who'd list one price and as soon as you click on 'customize' you'd be looking at a higher "starting at" price). CNET doesn't give any editor's review on emachines either. If I need more hardware than customer service, does the brand name make a big difference? Or would I be able to sleep as well at night w/ the less-known laptops @ better prices?

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