Pavilion 6746C - A good box.
Written: Mar 16 '01 (Updated Mar 16 '01)
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Pros: Fast, reliable.
Cons: Wish it had 128MB RAM instead of 64. HP technical support needs better publicity.
The Bottom Line: A good machine at a good price.
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| mfrye's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Pavilion 6746C (P1477A) PC Desktop |
If you're like me, you like a reliable, reasonably fast home computer. The HP Pavilion 6746C definitely fits that description. I've had problems with HP before, namely the use of Maxtor harddrives in the Pavilion 6630 caused performance problems, but the 6746C seems to be he result of HP fixing the problem instead of just marketing a newer product.
The HP Pavilion 6746C comes with a Celeron 733MHz processor on a 66MHz front side bus. This is plenty fast for any home user and it keeps the price down compared to other Intel based processors. The 6746C comes with 64MB of RAM, which is a little lite for my taste, but I run lots of programs at once. I've had the extra 64 added for good measure.
One of the coolest features of the Pavilion 6746C is the HP CD-Writer Plus. It provides 4x speed write, 4x speed re-write, and 24x speed read. These are maximums, but I was surprised how fast the CD-Writer worked. I burned a CD with the full 76 minutes of music possible, and it took less than 10 minutes. The CD-Writer is also great for backing up lots of data. It comes with Adaptec DirectCD and Adaptec Easy CD Creator which let you simply add files to an archive which is tranferred to the CD quickly. Nice!
Another good feature of the Pavilion 6746C is the fact that someone in engineering finally realized that there needs to be at least one USB port on the front of the machine. If you are a digital photography enthusiast, you'll find this a refreshing change from having to get behind your PC (especially if it's in a computer desk like mine) to connect the camera cable.
The Pavilion 6746C comes with Windows Millenium Edition installed. I was pleasantly surprised by what seems to be a much better OS than Windows 98. I am not generally a fan of Microsoft, but they seem to have nailed a few minor points that people having been begging for resolution of for years. The best feature of Windows ME is the System Restore. System Restore automatically (and on your request) backs up the current configuration of your PC so that it can be restored to an earlier date. Case in point: I am a computer nerd by profession so I am always trying new things on my machine at home. Once I tried to install a networking product which all kinds of changes in my PC's OS. I realized this was not a favorable change, but simply uninstalling the software would have left most of the changes in tact. With System Restore, I simply clicked a date in a calendar to choose the date I wanted the system to go back to. Voila! After a little processing and a quick reboot, my computer was just as it had been the day before.
Overall, the HP Pavilion 6746C is a great machine for the money. It comes with Microsoft Works 2000, Quicken Basic 2000, Microsoft Money 2000, and QuickLink III (fax software), all of which are very useful. HP's 24/7 customer service/technical support is difficult to get to, but helpful when you find it. Then engineers are qualified, but it seems that HP doesn't make much effort to let the customer know how to get help. I ended up having to call long distance a few times.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 799
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: 701-800
RAM: 64
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
mfrye
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Member: Matt Frye
Location: Apex, NC
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
I am a 28 year old Unix SysAdmin.
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