HP and compaq NOW are the same company. [Before they bought Compaq I believe is was Packard Bell, which turned into HP or was bought by a different company, I'm not sure.] A while ago they were seperate, HP did the buyout, just like gateway did the buyout on eMachines. I would take an eMachines over HP usually though, but any prebuilt system in my mind is good for parts only.compaq and hp are the same company....had a hp for 7 years and it worked great all 7 years. emachines i had took a crap like in 2 yrs.