@GiantEnemyCrab: I would. The name is just the name of the people putting acer/ asus parts in a box and paying for then ads. It's no different to me than Dell or HP or basically anyone (I'm looking at you Apple.) It has a good looking case and I HATE the whole "gamer" aesthetic. It's not rediculously priced yet, so eh.

oo0cyst0oo

That brand was made up for marketing purposes until they went under. But "Packard-Bell" sounds like Americana!

altus

I would be shocked if they even sold one. Who's going to spend that kind of money on a PACKARD BELL?

GiantEnemyCrab

Strange that they would make a gaming desktop to compete with Acer. Since, you know, Acer owns Packard-Bell.

[news.cnet.com]

11hawkinst

So it'll be $600 for parts and $1400 for tacky, then?

mdhatucb

"Cool-looking rig, who makes it?"
"Packard-Bell"
"oh."

Moral of the story: Leave Packard-Bell where it belongs -- on the shelf, right next to Phen-Fen, Value-Jet, and Enron.

DaveExile

@Griffehpoo: comment of the day

halcyon100

@theonlydoublej:
Looks like it to me, though it's missing in the first picture. Kinda cool, huh? I mean...if the model name weren't so dopey, that is.

Griffehpoo

That thing is gonna run Ski-Free SO fast!

Griffehpoo

is that a led projected "ipower" logo coming out from the case?

theonlydoublej

Next thing you know, some car company will get the "bright idea" to sell a brand new Yugo sports coupe. Geez, who in their right mind paid for the rights to the name Packard Bell??

thnkwhatyouthnk

ipower x2.0?

Why go with the overused 'i' prefix and gear it towards the wrong crowd?

Power? OK, that's fine.

X? I'm tired of there being an X in front of a model number, it makes it none the more extreme. Unless you have a mega-righteous X-shaped heatsink that increases performance by 1337% then I don't want to see that X.

2.0? What happened to 1.0? Or was that Packard Bell before they did us all a favor and died away? Am I to assume they just went "dark" all these years to come up with an edgy marketing campaign instead of marketing a computer to my great-grandparents who probably knew Alexander Bell?

I still hate Packard Bell.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. Does it actually PROJECT the word "ipower" from the front onto the desk? I just changed my whole opinion, that's friggin' awesome and I want one! Throw in some flood-lights on the back and we're set.

Absent Blue

@Griffehpoo: Kudos a plenty good sir! Genuine LOL. Ski Free... Ahh Bear!

eagleapex

At least Packard-Bell hasn't lost their aesthetic sense of 1998. The only difference is they've poked a few holes in the side and filled them in with red plastic.

forcetrainer

My first pc was a Packard Bell! A lighting fast 286/16MHz.

Jerry

@Absent Blue:
This is totally the "iBeat Blaxx" of computers. You know you're out of touch when the best name you could come up with contains the cliched "i"prefix and the dreaded, superfluous "X". I'm suprised they stifled the urge to slap "BETA" at the end of it.

TonyTriple

Packard Bell still exists?

almattitude_v1

oooh boy, more used parts sold as new? Sweet, sign me up.
One of my early pcs was a packard bell, a screamin' 486 DX. It was fun to take apart, I'll give it that.

s017jrs

i cant believe they are still around...what the hell have they been doing all this time?

jrghoull

@jrghoull:

Waiting for the chance to strike..

PlasmaMachine

Hey now, haters: Packard-Bell is simply going back to its roots. It has spent literally tens of dollars and countless intern-minutes sourcing the ugliest components it could find and combined them into…what is this monstrosity? I didn't know it was still possible to manufacture an ugly keyboard. What is that on the left side of the case? The door handle from a 1987 Subaru XT?

bailey_ca

@bailey_ca:
The keyboard's a Logitech G15. Ugly or no, it's quite a nice keyboard to use.

Griffehpoo

@Absent Blue: 1.0: [www.ipowergames.net]

bailey_ca

Wow, and I thought that Acer gaming set was ugly...

Knirfie

The ugliness runs in the family.
Now, I am waiting for a ugly gateway gaming pc .

k2001

Wow. Talking about sins of the fathers...I doubt they will sell more than 3 based solely on name and reputation.

Dook_In_The_Urinal

You kids and your video cards and your quad cores and your fancy keyboards. In my day, I owned a Packard Bell (Really). It was the go-go 90s. Clinton was in office. Internet was controlled by 3 major providers - Prodigy, Compuserve, and AOL. I was 12 at the time - the year? 1993. It was a hellish summer that year in Texas. X-Wing came out, and I needed a computer to run it. So off I went to the local best buy.

And there she was on the shelf, my first very own computer. Sure, I had dabbled with computers before, a 386 that was my fathers and a Commodore 64, but nothing this expensive. It was almost 1000$ there on the shelf with monitor. A 486 Packard Bell, Windows 3.1, Dos 5.0, 25mhz processing speed, and 4mb of RAM. I was in love.

That summer the plague hit us and killed everyone, even me. But I'll never forget my first computer.

NumberFiveIsAlive

WTF that things like 2ft side to side whys it so wide?

phantam

@k2001: They already do, the FX desktop line. And this is coming from someone who uses and adores his Gateway P-6860FX gaming laptop.

Dook_In_The_Urinal

Well, here is your Shrek trivia: the motion picture was rendered on 1500 Packard Bell servers....

Bigby

A Packard Bell machine?! That will go great with my Gateway 2000!

quazi

My first PC was a Packard Bell. What a terrible machine!

The floppy disk drive killed my Microsoft Publisher software (Microsoft did send me a new set of disks, there were around 10 of them).

Sometimes the whole computer would just freeze up. Eventually the mother board had to be replaced (I didn't even know what a mother board was).

Good times. Good times.

blatnym

I can't believe anyone is trying to revive the Packard Bell name. "Yes, let's take one of the most hated names in computers and bring it back from the dead."

This thing could be the secretly made by the Apple design team, and people will still turn their noses up at it because of the name.

And can anyone tell me why "gaming" PCs must all look hideous?

Bender

How did it go?

"Hi. Welcome to your Packard Bell computer. Your Packard Bell computer offers you two computing environments to choose from. A Packard Bell home environment and Microsoft Windows. Press button 1 to go directly to Navigator. Press button 2 to go directly to Windows 95..."

I forget the rest but that much is embedded in my childhood memories.

acids

Can I get a "meh"?

And $2000 may seem like not so much now, but wait 6 months and you will see people KILLING each other for a donut. Unless you live somewhere in america/Europe where salaries are rising to meet inflation and energy costs. We may see carnage in the gaming industry soon...

and good deals on bangin' set-ups (first sub-$1000 9700 box gets my money)

DJAZ

I briefly owned two Packard Bell laptops. The first one went "SNAP!" about 45 minutes after I powered it on, never to be revived. The next one went "SNAP!" about 3 days into its life, with a bonus [i]red[/i] stripe across the black & white LCD display.

The third one was a Toshiba that outlived Rasputin.

Crashproof

Act now and you can get a new SVGA 14" monitor and a US Robotics 14.4k Modem with super loud tone speaker!
eek...Just the thoughts of a Packard Bell logo make me twitch a bit :(

marc_wtih_a_c

In Europe, PB are a big, respected brand.
I don't see any reason why they can't transfer their quality over for their state-side revival.
Noone in Europe is laughing at this - it actually looks like it could be on par with Acer.

purplegreendave

Seriously, of all the brands to bring back to life, Packard-Bell?!

gokieks

wow, blast from the past!! It's like bringing back to life a post thats been away for years, whats the point?

kemosabee

Ew.
Anyone who buys a 'Gaming Rig' preassembled deserves what they get.

AmishJohn

Packard Bell?

I don't know how to react to this, but I guess I'll start by sitting in the middle of the street wearing goggles and a cowboy hat and spontaneously combusting.

videoCWK