Computer manufacturers are gearing up for the holiday season with new products being announced all the time. One of the biggest sellers over the holidays is usually computer systems. While many want notebooks for Christmas, several manufacturers are announcing small form factor desktops for users wanting larger screens and keyboards who don’t need portability.

Yesterday eMachines announced its own new SFF systems and today Acer is announcing a new SFF of its own. The Acer system is called the Aspire X3200 and it measures 10.4-inches H x 4-inches W x 14.4-inches L. Inside the compact case is a Phenom X3 processor, Blu-ray drive, 4GB of RAM and 640GB of storage. Pricing for the system is $679.99.

I’m the go to guy for my friends and family when it comes time to buy a new computer. They always want to know what sort to of PC they should buy. For the most part my family doesn’t play games and don’t need the quad-core, SLI running beasts that I am fond of. What dear old mom and dad need is a simple system that will surf the net and can be bought cheap.

The name eMachines is pretty much synonymous with cheap computers today and it announced a pair of new and low cost machines that would do mom and dad proud. The first new machine is the eMachines T3646 and the rig can be had for only $299.99 without a display. At that price you won’t get high-end components. The machine runs on an AMD Sempron LE-1250 CPU, sports 1GB of RAM and has a 160GB hard drive. The OS is Windows Vista Home Basic.