Advantages: Look of the machines Disadvantages: Everything else
...never purchased a computer from Packard Bell and never will, basically because I know not too. I have had a number of problems with other peoples packard bell machines though (I used to be a computer technician) and the people with the problems have all had a valid cover plan. So you would think that Packard Bell would come along and sort the problem out for them….wrong. In 2 cases I have been called out to fix Packard Bell machines, both times with ... ...to ring the Packard bell helpline as I cannot touch the machines without affecting the warranty. They have both done this and have been waiting weeks for a response. Considering you can pay from £200 upwards for coverplans you’d think they would offer better service than that, but they don’t. In one case, we needed to format the hard drive, easy enough to do you’d think, but no….Packard Bell had previously installed a different CD-Rom drive into ...
GR-Design 02.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: Available on the high street. Lot of free software Disadvantages: Very hard to upgrade. No actual OS disc
...I have been pleased with Packard Bell, but having said that I would not but another. I have a PB Club 40, purchased in October 1998. It has a Cyrix M II 300mhz processor, with onboard sound and graphics card and a 56K modem. It had 32mb ram, this has been upgraded by myself to 60mb. I was pleased with the purchase price at the time (£599) and got the usual package you can expect from Dixon's. Some games, MS Works, Win 98 and MS Money. I have never ... ...made me decide to never have another Packard. I suppose since becoming a net addict(!) I have discovered that I can get a much better PC online, and to my own spec too. The PB comes with a lot of preinstalled software, which is not uninstallable. This is bad as I am forced to keep certain items on my machine. I have got around this by borrowing the win 98 cd from a friend and doing a format/install. The PB comes with master cd and boot disc, which ...
alflavor 20.01.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: looks flashy Disadvantages: too many to list
Packard Bell do nothing more than manipulate ill informed people, selling them way more than you will ever get. The computers themselves are aimed at first time users and so the most vulnerable customers as well as helpless parents around christmas who don't know any better. To be frank in my opinon the computers do nothing more than make your life hell and cost over the odds.
The big stores are all in on the conspiracy against home owners, in order ... ...own manufacturers warranty anyway, all Packard Bell do is get your money and then send hardware back to the manufacturer and it costs them nothing. Yet they have taken a hell of a lot off money off those who can't afford it.
The warrenty is a laugh, there are so many small prints that fiddle the consumer that it is laughable and god forbid you should ever need to call the help lines! They cost you a fortune and the people on the other end of the ...
Gemgemmings 03.09.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: Good reliable system, Easy to reinstall Disadvantages: No Windows disks
...reading several different opinions of Packard Bell on here one thing seems certain, that being that they are a poor company, poor systems, poor customer support and so on. However, my own experiences with my Packard Bell system has been rather good so I have decided to try and redress the balance somewhat.
OK so I bought my PC just over 2 years ago now for university. Despite this I wanted a decent enough system to play some games with a few mates ... ...to the brilliant software that Packard Bell provided. Basically after I reformatted the hard drive I simply inserted the system disk which was provided and followed the onscreen instructions. They provide 3 CD ROMS ith all of the software on and the instructions on screen allow all of this to be re-installed simply to restore the PC to the condition it was in when I bought it. One downside of this is that it does install all of the software onto ...
pumfster 02.03.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: Not a lot! Disadvantages: Poor customer care, awkward designed case
We have owned a Packard Bell PC for almost five years now. Yes, that is very old, but as I had a new computer 2 or 3 years ago, the old Packard Bell was never needed for anything more than word processing. It was a Intl 486, 66MHz processor, originally with just 4Mb of RAM and a 512Mb hard disk. By todays standards, thats tiny! Anyway, about 6 months ago it died. Caput. It did switch on, made a bleap as it always did, and then nothing. We took it ... ...batteries just clip in, but Packard Bell has actually soldered the battery into place, thus making it impossible to remove without destroying the motherboard. So, we decided to give up, and just upgrade the motherboard. Urm..., well, we thought we would, until we found that no where made, and probably never did make, compatible motherboards. It was a very strange case design, and the expansion cards were mounted on a riser board. Not a problem in ...
aljones 02.06.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
...I have a Packard Bell PC which I bought 18 months ago and have found the system to be reliable and trouble free. I have previously bought systems fro other lesser name retailers and always experienced serious problems with them. With Packard Bell I am pleased to say that I have had none of these problems at all.
The system came pre-installed and running correctly but also has a restore disk to re-install the system to its factory defaults should ...
jonwhite 11.11.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: Not many. It works occasionaly, and providing you dont want to do much other than play solitaire it should be ok. Disadvantages: Bad design make upgrading and the frequently needed servicing difficult and doing anything more than switching it on a nightmare. Customer services are in existance but do not help whatsoever.
...Do not buy a Packard Bell PC. It is really that simple. I have owned three, from a 386 many years ago to a PIII 400Mhz last year, and the quality of the products, the workmanship, the customer service, and the company in general has gone from bad to worse. Let me try to illustrate this for you. My last Packard Bell, during it's one year lifespan had:
- 2 replacement CD ROM drives.
- 1 replacement Hard Disk drive (extremely inconvienient since I ... ...the design of the newer Packard Bell's was, and indeed that he had seen other systems with similar problems to our own. As for the customer services... they are called 'MasterCare' in the UK, yet that implies they actually care about their customers which, from my experience, is completely false. Holding for hours on a £1 a minute waiting for a customer service representative who has no idea what a computer is let alone how to fix one became a regular ...
the_midnight_falcon 09.04.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
i could well believe the multi rich big firm PB have put quite a no of people in hospital due to stress on more than a few ocasions,let me tell you.Recovery discs....recovery discs my shorts.How can such a big firm like PB allow consumers to part with their hard earned cash,and supply them with faulty goods???????.I wouldnt mind if one of the speakers didnt work, or it wasnt what i expected,but faulty goods..unbelievable.For a begginer to be stuck ... ...book says ,to be told......not compatible...not configured right..ARGH..ARGH...ARGH.....2.30am..argh 4.00am argh 5.30am argh..up all night argh.These wiz kids are on thousands and thousands per year,wouldnt you think they would get it right.As for the TEC SUPPORT LINE...they must of made £465.89 from me.I could have had a weekend in Amsterdam with that,but double the fun. ...
GAZMO 24.09.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: Cheap and Compact Disadvantages: Waste of money, Unupgradeable
...simply have to say NO! Packard Bell Hardware is 99% of the time incompatible with todays hardware - they cannot be upgraded. The connectors are different, etc... With performance, they may perform ok for the first 12 months, then bam!!! It crashes and bodges up, or something blows. You then spend about 10hours on the phone at national rate, to find out that its gonna cost you an arm and a leg to repair. Its better in the long run to buy a system, ...
duggy 12.11.2000
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Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: easy to use Disadvantages: not easy to upgrade
...a well known brand like PACKARD BELL .so of they go and to a well known shop to find a very young lad whose main aim is to sell you this state of the art computer with so much unwanted software that costs the earth. The problem with PACKARDS BELLS are they are one of the most expensive computers on the market, it's like paying for a good pair of jeans, and only really paying for the name. I'm not saying that the actual computer is bad. Far from it, ... ...pleasure, but after you had it for a while you might think about upgrading to
Bring it inline with newer computers. Then you find that if you putting a new CPU in you have to change the motherboard, and the case, and so on. I have had two of their computers up to now, but I will not bye any more because of this reason. Most people are not afraid of computers any more and no upgrading is part of the job, but to find you be better buying a new one,,, ...
ikeee 24.09.2000
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Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
...often see those fancy looking Packard bell pc and think that they look like a good pc, right? I have got something to say about that I know that they look good but believe me these machines are overpriced and under specified. I helped my friend to purchase his pc about a month ago and he really liked the look of this Packard bell so he wrote down the spec and brought this list of things to me, believe me I have never seen something so lame. It is ...
XJSGAV 03.09.2000
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Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: lower priced computers in the US for systems Disadvantages: slow, cheap parts used to build it
Packard Bell computers are low-end parts and are constantly needing to be repaired. My experience with this company comes through friends, whose P. Bell was constantly in need of help. It was SLOWER than a snail and they finally had to replace the motherboard when the computer locked up and it was discovered that the motherboard had crashed permanently. Beware--if you buy one, your computer will spend more time in the shop than at home! My husband ...
cuzette 25.08.2000
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Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: are there any? Disadvantages: Everything!
All you can say about these machines is.......
1. They kind of piggyback off HP's full name...Hewlett Packard
2. Only Dixons Group sells them in the UK for over inflated prices which puts alot of people off buying a PC for the home.
3. The design of the hardware is not only of cheap quality but restrictive to performace and upgrades
4. Online support is virtually none
5. Supported by Dixons group which says it all really, bunch of cowboys / ...
Advantages: Good computers Disadvantages: Poor customer service, patronising staff
...more than pleased with my Packard Bell computer however I am not happy with their level of customer service. I recently required some technical advice from them regarding the restore disk they supplied with my PC. I was referred by them to the point of sale (PC World). They in turn referred me back to Packard Bell saying it was not their reponsibility. A further call to PB eventually got me through to a tchnician who treated me as if I was totally ... ...them. I got an automated reply saying my mail had arived but I have to this day heard nothing further despite 6 other e-mails being sent to and received by Packard Bell.
I have finally given up on them and resolved the problem I was experiencing by going elsewhere. ...
jonwhite 06.10.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
Advantages: None .. other than expensive foot-rests Disadvantages: Everything ... just don't buy one
Packard Bells .. hmmm .. where do I start?
Just don't buy one! They (and almost ALL branded PCs you see in Dixons, Comets, Currys et al) are all over-priced and way way under-specification for the market.
I used to work for a company providing the helpdesk support for John Lewis stores. Packard Bells were the worst kind of machine to support in the way the machine was laid out for the end-user.
If you can think of anything wrong in setting up ... ...to tell the bods at Packard Bell how this should have been done.
Most of the time the machines would crash because of the following:-
a) Direct-X (latest edition at the time was v6.0) .. was INCOMPATIBLE with their video card. You had to stick to v5.x for it to work.
b) 3D Video cards with outdated drivers installed .. and nowhere to download them from as they had been "tweaked" to work with the cut-down version (usuallt 8MB instead of 12 or 16MB ...
muguk 06.08.2000
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Packard Bell (Shop)
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