No gripes, everything works.
Written: Dec 12 '00
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Pros: Good, reliable computer.
Cons: None I know of.
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| beesman's Full Review: HP Pavilion 8660 |
I wanted to make my own CD's to play in the car or stereo. It was not the cheapest one with a CDRW DVD drive, but it had a bigger hard drive & 128 RAM and I know HP enjoys a good reputation with the people who own them.
I got mine at Best Buy just about a year ago. Brought it home, set it up and no problems since I bought it. Everything works. The software for making CD's is fairly easy to use but takes some time to get really proficient, so plan on investing some time. Ideal thing would be for womeone who has one to show you how to burn CD's. Forget the guys who sell them showing you how unless you get real lucky. Do not get frustrated if at first you do not succeed. Main thing; just use a CDR (NOT CDRW) to make your audio CD's or they will not play on anything other than your CPU CDRW DVD. What with the two drawers, copying a CD is no problem. To make a CD taking various songs from various CD's, you need to know how to download all the songs as a .wav file and store it on your hard drive, then burn it on your CD. Otherwise you will get really frustrated putting the CD's in and taking them out. The software has that capability.
I can't say the Pentium III 533Mhz is a smoker, but is plenty fast for me. The old Pentium III's are almost bullet proof. The 128 RAM is more than enough. Flight Simulator 2000 works great and no jerking the monitor display. The 20 GIG hard drive is HUGE enough. I still can not understand what someone needs with a 40 gig hard drive. . . . The keyboard and mouse work fine. The external ZIP drive I added works great. I've got an old Lexmark printer which the HP runs fine. Supposedly there are bays for upgrading, but I can't find anything else it needs.
What I do not like? Nothing, everything works as it should. Yeah, by todays standards and prices, I paid to much. But a year ago it was one of the hottest on the market. Today you can buy one similar for around a grand and get a printer with it and maybe a lollipop.
I have an old Packard Bell I bought from Best Buy almost five years ago. I bought the total extended service plan, ($100.), and after a year it smelled like something burned inside and died. I returned it to Best Buys who sent it to Atlanta and completely rebuilt it at no charge. Took about a month to get it back, but they replaced the mother board, power supply, this and that. The Best Buy computer man said if I had had to pay for the rapairs it would have ran over $500. Today it is still doing fine. Needless to say, I bought the extended in home service plan for this new HP 8660C. Before you shun the extended service plans offered by the discount stores, read them over and check the prices. It's kind of like a spare tire, you don't need it until you need it . . . I will never buy any high tech piece of equipment, such as a CPU, without getting the extended service plan. The Best Buy plan is good because if they repair something three times and it breaks down again they give you full credit for the purchase price towards a new one of your choice.
One final thing. I bought a dinky low end HP from another discount store with the Celeron processor and the darn thing was nothing but a hassel. I called HP tech support and have to say they were not very much help at all. Ultimately I returned it and elected to purchase the big HP Pentium III which gave absolutely no problems for a year now.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1299.
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 501-600
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20
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Epinions.com ID:
beesman
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Reviews written: 4
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