Packard Bell, back yet again with the Vibe 300

We get that sometimes rights holders just want to keep a well known brand alive, but continually resurrecting Packard Bell—one of the least respected names in the computer industry later on—is a move something more akin to marketing seppuku. The zombie brand from hell makes its latest return with the Vibe 300, a 6GB audio device going for way above market value at €229 (about $275 US), but featuring, to its credit, a 1.8-inch color screen, USB On-The-Go 2.0, and an SD/MMC slot. Just thought you might like to know.

[Billy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

I actually thought Packard Bell disappeared back in the days of the Atari.

[Cameron Mirza @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

Maybe they have hopes of evoking "hewelet PACKARD" when people see their brand. It certainly can't be that they want to remind people of the piece of junk computer they bought 15 years ago.

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

i admit, my first computer was a packard bell...

[balugabutt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

Actually I seen that Packard Bell had some nice computers on their website. Someone told me they where big in Europe.

Check out their website: http://www.packardbell.com/

[CC @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My first computer was a sweet Vic 20, followed by Timex Sinclair...

[hesh @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

I used to do tech work for a non-profit organisation and they had a few of these in one of their departments. Worst. Machines. Ever. They absolutely sucked balls.

[Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

Hahahah, I remember my first (and only) packard bell computer which I got over 10 years ago. A Pentium 120mhz box. I must be one of few who never had any problems with it. I still have it to this day on mostly the original hardware, of course it's no longer running windows 95. I have a stripped down linux mandrake on there running an irc server for my website which gets a decent amount of hits. It's current uptime is 127 days although I've gotten higher with it over past few years.

[EnricoSwave @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

It's not that hard to manufacture and sell Sepuku, in fact, Palm (Because saying pa1m0ne would be incorrect) is doing it RIGHT NOW!

[Jonathan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

PACKARD BELL
Now there is a name I haven't heard in a long time.

#3 My first computer was a Packard Bell my uncle bought from Sears. It was a Pentium 233 Mhz with a 5 GB Hard Drive and Windows 95 and 64 MB ram.

The first game I got for it was QUAKE 2. I will never forget how great i thought it looked compared to my Playstation running on software rendering. Imagine my suprise when I got my next computer, a Pentium III 450 with 96 MB RAM and ran Quake II in OPENGL rendering mode. I'll never forget how amaizing those graphics looked.

[jason @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

some of you kids show your age. first computer was a pentium 233? damn, i feel old.

[deuce @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My Packard Bell was the very first multimedia computer for home use. It was a 24MHz, 32MB RAM, CD-Rom and a nice 15" monitor.
I learned DOS inside and out on that machine.

[digirebel @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

If someone stole a bunch of these, would that person be a vibe raider?

[MiniMage @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My mother bought a PB years ago, after her PS/2 kept killing its hardware. I think the PB was somewhere around a P90. I suppose it was ok. I wouldn't buy anything with the name "Packard" in it right now (well, sometimes I get desperate enough to bid on TC1000 TabletPCs on eBay).

[AFD @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My 1st PC was also a Packard Bell - 100MHz Legend-series. Most expensive doorstop I've ever owned. I'm still impressed that my dad's pre-Win95 75MHz is still running after 10 yeaers. Though, I don't think I'd ever buy anything from them again, after repairing the two PCs so many times.

[bennybtl @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

so while we're talking about first computers(and feeling old @ 23). mine was an AST(?) 486SX 33mhz machine with 4MB of RAM, no sound card, no cd-rom and a 280 MB hard drive running windows 3.1. I remember playing DOOM and NOT being able to run Quake I. :( haha.

I know there are much older machines but this is still barely a shadow of my laptop.

[Zerokills @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

Ahh....the 386 and 486 days.....remember using a bootdisk so you could actually play games; like Duke Nukem and Ultima 1. :)

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

bennybtl: I'm with you on that one. I'm 22 but my first computer was a 386. The family had a 486 though. On our 486 I could run Doom but that was as fancy as it got. Then when I got my P500, I could run Duke Nukem 3d and that was the greatest thing ever. Our family 486 was an IBM PS/2. I remember when we went to the store and bought a new cd-rom drive (read: cd-rom drive that connected to a propietary ISA sound card) with all the extra software. It cost a couple hundred dollars. The 486 cost a little over $2000.

[Sam McConnell @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My third computer was a Packard Bell Pentium 75 with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups and a whopping 8mb of RAM. It came with the Microsoft Multimedia Pack, which showed that the computer could stream postage-stamp-size video from the 2x CD-ROM drive. I thought that was the best thing ever.

[Jack @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My second computer was a Pakard Bell (Is it sad that this makes me a 16 yr. old feel ancient?) , Don't know the exact specs But, I do know that it wasn't a pentium, just an intel chip, a 420 MB HDD and ran Windows 3.1. Ah the days of running Commander Keen using the A:Run command.....

[leiatwm @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

Yeah... our first computer was a Intel486x66!

66 mhz and 16 MB of ram with 400 MB hd! We had a 4x CD rom and a modoem! And sadly, yes I thought postage stamp videos from CDs are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And I played Wolfenstein 3D and Doom on it. Doom 2 was like awsome!

It's only years later when I got a Packard Bell Pentium 200 with 4 GB hd and 64 MB of ram. I was finally able to play Duke 3D and RedAlert in Windows 95!

[kdogg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

Hey! Be nice! My dad bought our first PC (first comp being an apple IIC), and it was a packard bell.... Pentium 2 at 233mhz, 32mb ram and 4gig drive if I remember right. Ran for years.... infact it still did up until three years ago when my dad decided it was just taking up too much space! It was actually the only desktop we ever purchased..... we built the rest of our computers from scratch.

[t3h_bob @ Dec 19th 2005 1:02AM]

My first computer was a Compaq Presario CDS 524:

Built in 15" monitor
4x CD-ROM Drive
3.5" Floppy Drive
500MB HDD
16MB RAM (up to 48 I think)
66MHz 486DX2 Processor (oh yeah, baby)
no graphics card (duh!)
Standard OS: Windows 3.1

God, 1995 was the shits.
Picture: http://img322.imageshack.us/img322/6292/compaq8qs.jpg

[cth @ Dec 25th 2005 6:03AM]

PB Alert! All hands to battlestations!



WTF is going on? I haven't so much as heard 'Packard Bell' in nigh on 7 or 8 YEARS. At that last ceremony a friend and I destroyed a P133 model vowing NEVER to work on one EVER AGAIN! I personally set fire to the motherboard. And with good reason too.



You see, PB cut corners on anything they could. Need to replace that modem? Oh... Well, you'll also need to replace the CD controller and your sound card as they are ON THE SAME FRIGGIN BOARD!



What's that you say? Can't find any IRQs for the sound card or modem? No kidding! PB insured that their BIOS ignored things like upgrades and proceeded on the assumption that 'of course you have the standard PB modem/sound card/CD-ROM Controller' - why would you need anything else?! Those PCI slots? I think they're vestiges of something other machines were actually able to USE...



In my career as an IT guy I have NEVER seen a more stubborn machine, resistant to upgrades of almost any type, made with the crappiest drivers, slow hardware (even for it's day). Even the NAME kills me! Do you know how many people used to come into our shop saying they had 'one of them there HEWLETT Packard Bells'?! HP must have been going NUTS as their machines weren't nearly as bad. Hell, even the 'shotgun' Acer desktops were better machines than these!



And yet... The curse has returned...



- Two weeks ago, a friend asked me to look at her father's machine. I did - one look told me everything I needed to know - the dreaded Packard Bell 'suicide' logo (Google that image and tell me it's NOT a logo of a tech blowing his brains out). I got him a new computer.



- A Packard Bell was donated to my .org last week.



- Now this... God is trying to tell me something. Maybe I need to take a vacation, set my affairs in order.. I dunno.. Move to Vermont and milk cows...