alt Hacker NewsThe author mentions Packard-Bell which always just had the whiff of 2 legit companies and was enough to trick uninformed shoppers at Walmart that they were buying high end. Remember in 1999 if you didn't read Computer Shopper the only thing you knew about PCs was what you saw in TV ads.
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I worked tech support at an ISP and despaired when someone with a Packard-Bell called in. First, they'd let you know it, as though they were telling you they had a high-end Real Computer. Second, you instantly knew it'd have a cheap POS LT Winmodem that would only train up to 28.8 if the wind was blowing in the right direction, and would buffer underrun if the user tried playing an MP3 while they were downloading something.
Ugh, I despised dealing with that gear.
I remember seeing the department-store Packard Bell PCs on shelves. Packard Hells, I called them. About half of the display models were busted. I'm surprised that uninformed shoppers could remain uninformed after seeing that.
My parents got a Packard Bell computer for a deep discount (maybe free?) for signing up for N years of Prodigy internet. It was one of my earliest computers.
I didn't realize until right now that it had no relationship to Hewlett Packard. I guess I always assumed that it was HP's budget line.