HP Pavilion a810n Desktop PC (AMD Athlon XP 3300+ Processor, 512 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, Dbl Layer 16X DVD+/-RW/CR-RW Drive, CD-ROM Drive)

Rating:
Summary: Best bang for your 64bit buck!
Review: HP Pavilion a810n (ready to ship version of the a850e series)

Factory Specs:
Processor: AMD® Athlon™ 64 3300+ processor (2.40GHz)
OS: Windows XP Home SP2
Memory: 512MB DDR PC3200
Graphics card: Integrated SiS® Mirage2 Graphics with 128MB shared video memory
Hard drive: 160GB Ultra DMA [gigabyte is defined as 1,000,000,000 bytes, accessible capacity may vary]
Primary CD/DVD drive: Double Layer DVD±R/RW drive with CD writer capabilities
Secondary CD/DVD drive: CD-ROM
Memory slots: 2 DIMM (one available)
Front-access ports: 9-in-1 memory card reader; 3 USB 2.0 ports; 1 FireWire (IEEE 1394) port; microphone/headphone/line-in
Communications: Integrated 10/100Base-T network interface; 56K fax/modem
Sound: Integrated audio


A couple of things about the factory specs:
- With the factory setting (128MB shared video memory) and no additional RAM installed you are actually working with 384MB of RAM right out of the box. You can however enter the BIOS and change the video memory to 64MB or 32MB to free up some RAM.
- The 160GB hard drive is actually partitioned, one drive (C) is actually 142GB and obviously is the main partition where all your files will be managed, and the other drive (D) 6.06GB and is locked and contains all the factory reformat files, this way HP (as many other companies do) can save money and not actually send you a factory recovery disk. Now how 142 + 6.06 = 160GB is obviously PC maker new math and is why they add accessible capacity may vary to the system specs.

I used it as it came out of the box for a while (1+ week) and my initial impression was that even with using it at the factory configuration of 384MB of RAM it was much faster than my old Athlon 1300+ with 768MB of RAM (which granted isn't very hard). The first thing that you notice about it is how incredibly quiet it is, you turn it on and if there weren't lights on the front you would honestly think that it wasn't running, and it's not that it doesn't have fans, it does indeed have two, one on the CPU cooler and one on the rear of the case (inside). I ran very intensive program combinations (i.e. Adobe Photoshop + Trillian 3 Pro(which oddly enough is a memory hog) + Excel, Word, Outlook 2003) with no sign of stutter what so ever. I even traded up the old Microsoft keyboard I was using in favor of the new quiet key keyboard that came with the PC.

Pros:
- Quiet (Very quiet)
- 64 bit processor
- Double layer DVD burner (does not include the LightScribe HP DVD burner)
- Price (sub $700 system after rebates)
- Interesting bunch of included software including a DVD authoring/editing program, MSN Money 2005 (OEM), Quicken
- 7 total USB 2 ports (4 back, 3 front)
- 2 FireWire ports (1 front, 1 back)
- 9 in 1 memory card reader is very convenient
- Sound is very decent (but that could be attributed to my Bose MediaMate Speakers)
- Integrated video card performs better than expected playing newer games, with no stutter

Cons:
- 128MB of shared video memory, I don't understand why PC makers don't just place a chip of memory the size of the "shared" video memory into one of the DIMM slots...it isn't going to break the bank.
- Integrated video
- Integrated audio
- Slathering of HP specific drivers/programs preinstalled
- Mail-in rebate...if you are planning on giving money back just do it - when will companies realize that if they just take money off at the time of purchase they will indeed be saving money by not having to hire an outside firm to handle the rebates
- Secondary drive is a CD-ROM only; in my opinion another DVD (plain with no writing ability) is more user friendly

My upgrades and would suggest to anyone:
Add another 512MB PC3200 DDR Ram to make a total of 1GB and replace the onboard graphic with a card like a 128MB Video Card GeForce FX 5200.

Rating:
Summary: Buyers beware: this is a crippled system!
Review: I can't believe two people gave this five stars. Maybe they didn't know, or maybe they just don't know.

The HP Pavilion a810n is probably the worst computer in HP's desktop lineup. Yes, it has an attractive low price, a seemingly large hard drive, and a "64-bit" processor. But read on, and you'll see why it's really a crippled system to fool those who don't know better.

- If you search on AMD's website, there's no such thing as the AMD Athlon 64 3300+ processor. In fact, there was never an AMD Athlon 64 3300+ CPU, at least not officially. Also, you'll see that all Athlon 64's released since last summer have at least 512KB of Level 2 cache (a.k.a., L2 cache), whereas the CPU in the a810n has only 256KB. (More on this later.) I searched on the web for more information. Many modders (hardware hackers who like to overclock and enhance their systems) speculate that this 3300+ processor is actually an AMD Sempron (AMD's equivalent of Intel Celeron) but with some 64-bit instructions thrown in. So, in other words, this is really a low-powered, low-cost processor masquerading as an Athlon 64. Doesn't this just suck? You thought you were getting a powerful processor that could compete with Pentium 4, but in truth you are getting shortchanged.

- Does the low level of L2 cache matter? Yes! Ok, if you just e-mail and surf the Web, it probably doesn't. But for most other tasks, from burning CDs/DVDs to ripping MP3s to graphics applications (esp. video editing) to gaming -- ah, esp. gaming -- a large L2 cache is a must. In fact, all recent Pentium 4's have 1MB of L2 cache, and the cheapest official AMD Athlon 64's have 512KB. 256KB is really late 90's technology. In real world performance, it does make a difference. Don't fall for this trap!

- What's more, the a810n's processor, even though rated at 2.4Ghz, runs only at 1.8Ghz, so that's a mysterious 25% or more reduction in performance. I thought it had something to do with power management, but this is a desktop, not a laptop. I just couldn't get the processor speed up to 2.4Ghz. (To check the true processor speed, press Windows-Break keys. It'll bring up the System control panel. On the "General" tab, you'll see the true processor speed as well as the amount of physcial RAM.)

- The system is also crippled in other ways, compared to even cheaper systems. For example, all HP's desktops sold online have serial ATA (SATA) hard drives. The a810n has a Samsung hard drive that still uses 10-year-old technology in transfering data. The drive is also noisy, esp. when you write large files to it.

- The a810n comes with 512MB of RAM, but only 380MB or so is available to the user. But even then, because HP pre-loads tons of junk on this, you get less than 200MB you can actually launch programs into. Yes, you can uninstall the programs to free up the RAM, but why should you, as the user, be forced to waste time optimizing a *new* system??? This is truly anti-consumerism at its best. (FYI, HP makes money for each third-party icon it puts on the desktop, like those from Apple and Symantec.)

- The a810n has dual optical drives. But many systems in this price range have a DVD burner *and* a CD burner. The a810n has a DVD burner and a CD-ROM drive. BTW, the CD-ROM drive is noisy and slow.

- The onboard video controller is very slow. Forget about playing any real 3D games on this.

When I first saw the a810n on sale at Staples last Sunday I was so excited, thinking I could get a 64-bit system to play with. (Microsoft just released a free download of Windows XP 64-bit Edition.) After I bought it yesterday, the more I played with it and the more I learned about it, the more I became dismayed. For this price, I could have gotten a real Pentium 4 system with hyper-threading (a kind of multiprocessing technology) and just as much RAM and even a bigger, faster hard drive. In fact, HP sells a retail-channel system (a710n?) that's way better than this, for about the same price!

Don't fall victim to HP's trying to sell you a crippled system. If you want an HP desktop, go to their website where the PCs are actually much better, at least they give you real processors and real hard drives.

Rating:
Summary: Sweet
Review: I convinced my parents to pick this baby up over an old compaq on clearance. It was $680 up front with a $50 mail in rebate--a great price for a machine with its specs, though I admit if it had came out of my wallet I would grumble and groan about how much darn money my stupid kids were costing me, sticking me in the arm here and ringing up the credit card there, groan groan moan. Grumble.

And while we're on the subject of complaining (and starting sentences with "and" left and right, take that english teachers), the computer comes bundled with a million useless programs and trials of stuff I'll never buy. People, get rid of the HP junk that they bundle with the computer, you won't ever need it. Most of it is photo and digital camera software, which you won't be needing since cameras come with CDs of their own software, and I'm sure there are free photo managers to be found on download.com that are way better than what HP gives you anyway. It's just unessesary clutter.

Which, I supppose, isn't much of a complaint because HOLY MOLY, LOOK AT THAT HARD DRIVE! The box claims that the computer has a 160 gig hard drive, which from some technical standpoint is probably true, but all you have access to is 142 gigs. Counting the 6.95 recovery partition that you can't browse--and dont need to either, though I'm sure I'll figure out how at some point--you have a grand total of 148.95 gigs. So where are the eleven other gigs? Who knows, theres some technical explanation behind it that requires a better understanding of hardware that I have.

Moving on, it's got a 64 bit Athlon processor. Which is nice, but your average user won't have any 64 bit applications to utilize those extra 32 lines to the processer.

It's got built in sound and video, with all the video memory leeched from your normal RAM. Which will work just fine if you're running any type of reasonable game. I popped the sucker open to install our wireless card, and, unlike our old pre-assembled from 01, it has an AGP slot. So if you feel like you need to run Doom 3 or something crazy like like that you can buy your own video card. Bah.

Yeah yeah, she's got 512 megs of DDR, which, if you look at the editors review of the computer, you'll notice that in his haste he wrote gigs. There's less of that actually available on accounta the video memory coming out of RAM.

It's a darn good computer, and after driving all over town looking at every PC and his brother this is the best deal we saw. HP has the cheapest pre-assembled PCs worth buying--emachines are craq--and being one of the cheaper models with beautiful specs to boot, I'd say this is the best buy on the market right now.