When Trunks comes back from the future he speaks of machines of pure evil, who basically wipe out all civilisation on earth. We see this is true in his own timeline through his flashbacks and the History of Trunks movie special.
Yet when the present timeline androids actually arrive they don't seem to do an awful lot wrong. They want to kill Goku of course but don't really kill anyone else unless they can help it even sparing police officers etc who challenge thems lives as well as a lot of the Z fighters. Indeed they were't even interested in fighting anyone minus Goku with the Z fighters being the ones constantly attacking them and being allowed to live to tell the tale. 17 even tries to persuade Piccolo to leave during their own battle saying he doesn't want to hurt him and appears to show genuine concern for him during their battle with Cell.
To me they seem more preoccupied with having fun and just enjoying being alive than doing any serious damage in the present timeline. The fact that the Z fighters allow 17 to just wander unattended after they are restored to life supports the view that perhaps they were never really much of a malevolent threat on a large scale a least. Some people would argue that after a while they may have gotten bred and turned to killing for their amusement thus becoming the monsters in Trunk's timeline but I doubt it.
What do you guys think, evil or not?
