Packard Bell imedia lineup gets an Acer-inspired refresh

Packard Bell recently overhauled its logo in an effort to keep up with the times, but are its offerings up to the same task? The new imedia lineup immediately recalls the recently announced M-series desktops from Acer, and that's no accident. The innards are remarkably similar too, with the top models sporting Core 2 Quad or AMD Phenom II X4 processors, a 1.5GB GeForce GT230, HDMI out, Blu-Ray combo drive and a maximum of 8GB DDR3 memory and 1TB of storage. While none of the specs are on the blistering edge of innovation, there's plenty of power there and keen pricing could make them an attractive proposition. The entry-level Celeron-based units start at £299 ($490) in the UK.

[Uncontrol @ Jul 3rd 2009 4:55AM]

that logo is just awful

[j_g_puff @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:45AM]

What's wrong with it? It's just a shiny red bell.

[crsh @ Jul 3rd 2009 7:16AM]

It looks like a doormat, which is appropriate for PB.

[j_g_puff @ Jul 3rd 2009 9:35AM]

Oh, and it's an anagram of 'Pleb Cak-lard'

[Moose @ Jul 3rd 2009 1:11PM]

I thought the same thing, as well as thinking its pretty ballsy to feature the typographic version of is so large on the front of the case since anyone old enough to remember PB of old would run the other way at seeing the brand.

[Zodiac @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:44PM]

I'm sure someone picked this up from Tech Museum. No doubt about that.

[Andrew88 @ Jul 3rd 2009 5:01AM]

Those assholes stole the P & B from my Alphabet soup, now I'm lost.

[sn1per @ Jul 3rd 2009 5:55AM]

Packard Bell is still around?

[GingerFox @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:34AM]

Its just a name, they were bought out by someone a while ago, carnt for the life of me remember who thought, can anyone remember?

[GingerFox @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:35AM]

*though

[kdkoch @ Jul 3rd 2009 8:38AM]

Packard Bell was bought by NEC back in the mid 90s. Then they sold it off around 99 but couldn't tell you who.

[sherl0k @ Jul 3rd 2009 9:34AM]

Acer bought them out, they're the European version of Gateway.

[David432111 @ Jul 3rd 2009 12:53PM]

Gateway bought Packard Bell in 2004 and then Acer bought Packard Bell's parent company Gateway in 2008. So Acer basically owns them now.

[CP @ Jul 6th 2009 12:31PM]

uh....acer is taiwanese, not european

[xconan @ Jul 4th 2009 3:18AM]

@ CP
If you noticed in the states Gateway is common to Acer as Compaq is to HP. Over in Europe Acer continues to sell the Packard Bell as I assume that's what "sherl0k @ Jul 3rd 2009 9:34AM Acer bought them out, they're the European version of Gateway" meant...

[Orinjz @ Jul 3rd 2009 5:57AM]

Ugh, if it wasn't for the unstoppable juggernaut of incompetent evil that is PC World/Currys, this brand of crap would have died out in the UK ages ago. I still can't figure out why Acer continues to sell under the Packard Bell name and effectively compete with itself in the same stores.

And yes, I was stupid enough to buy a nu-Packard Bell four years ago after my previous computer's CPU went into total meltdown. Never again.

[Excelsium @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:36AM]

surprising how much influence a few TV ads and stuff can have, we live in a land of sheep.

[j_g_puff @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:44AM]

Brands can be very valuable - it makes perfect sense for a parent company to own several 'competing' brands, because they'll always win when consumers decide between the choice.

However, this is totally puzzling in the case of Packard Bell. The value of this brand must be less than zero - I've yet to meet a computer user who doesn't want to physically harm the makers of the PB computer. Of course, it's quite possible that Acer will do a good job and produce some quality machines with the PB brand, but I don't think I could ever bring myself to purchase one. Just the thought of the brand makes me want to vomit.

[bebop @ Jul 3rd 2009 7:35AM]

It's the ideal situation having the consumer deciding your product and ... your product.

[Excelsium @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:34AM]

rly? I've seen far, far worse.

[Excelsium @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:37AM]

logo's that is @Uncontrol.

[t @ Jul 3rd 2009 8:58AM]

every pc is a packard bell, hp dell etc cause all that shit is nothing but off the shelf crap than any crack whore can get.
All you have to do is have an office space, some investor dollars and the number to an ODM is Asia. Do some advertisement and there you go. Walk into Best Buy's computer section and every pc runs windows. It's life depend on it. Them clowns can't wipe their ass without MS.
That is truly a damn shame.

[Will @ Jul 3rd 2009 9:22AM]

Alright calm down. There is nothing wrong with using Microsoft products.

[Maeztro @ Jul 3rd 2009 9:06AM]

Where is the turbo button?

[Brandon L @ Jul 3rd 2009 11:21AM]

PB....and J?

[Valicore @ Jul 3rd 2009 3:31PM]

This is giving me flashbacks to when I was 8 years old trying to take apart my 133mhz pentium packard bell with 8 megs of ram and 1 gig of hard drive space so that it would work. If it weren't for packard bell, I would never have learned how to fix computers.

[Mopo @ Jul 6th 2009 12:32PM]

First off why would a company still use the brand that is well know as "Packard Hell"?
I do agree with you that without crappy computers I would have never learned how to use them so well today. Ah, the memories...

[llsee @ Jul 3rd 2009 4:50PM]

Ahhh, so the PB name still lives. When IBM/Intel came out with the PC/AT architecture using the Intel 386 chip, I bought a Packard Bell computer. While I know that PB had a horrible reputation, and the Compuserve forums were filled with PB horror stories, I had no problems with mine. It served me well for many years, and I even upgraded it a couple of times. I finally replaced it when a move to Windows became inevitable. Fond memories, indeed.

[Daniel @ Jul 3rd 2009 6:20PM]

WHY oh WHY would anyone bring back packard HELL?