Terrific value, excellent performance
Written: Apr 26 '00 (Updated Apr 26 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Terrific value, rock solid, and fast
Cons: Hardware expansion is tight, low-quality speakers
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| OneMoose's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Pavilion 6640C (D9287A#888) PC Des... |
The HP Pavilion 6640C is a solid performer, offering enough power to please mid-level to advanced users, and enough preinstalled software and ease-of-use features to make new PC users feel immediately at home. Even four months after its initial release in January, 2000, this PC offers more value and quality than similarly priced systems from Dell, Compaq, and Gateway. Combined with HP's introductory $50 rebate and HP's legendary reputation for quality and support, this system is a winner in the 500MHz SoHo (small-office, home-office) category as well as for general home users.
The 6640C is equipped with an AMD K6-2 500MHz CPU, a 100MHz frontside bus (compared with 66MHz frontside buses in other PCs in this class), 64MB SDRAM, a snappy 15 GB Quantum Fireball lct10 Ultra DMA harddisk, 64K L1 primary cache, 512K L2 secondary cache, a HP CD-Writer 8000+ (4x write/2x rewrite/20x read, Multisession compatible), and a Conexant ITU V.90 K56flex modem. The modem is excellent - I regularly connect to my ISP using K56 at speeds of 52,000 - 53,000 bps, quickly and with no disconnects.
One splendid hardware feature is the presence of two USB ports, one on the back, and another on the front. HP's engineers were clearly anticipating that users would plug in their USB digital cameras to download images into this PC.
I passed on the bundled HP 15" monitor, which I found a bit fuzzy and overpriced. Likewise, the bundled Polk speakers look elegant but sound a bit weak, tinny and muffled; this may be due to the fact that they do not have their own power supply. The speaker cabling has an inline splitter for a subwoofer (not included).
Preinstalled software
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This system comes with Windows 98 Second Edition, and is well-configured from the start, requiring few (if any) tweaks to optimize performance. It comes with Quicken Basic 2000, Microsoft Money 2000 Basic, Quicklink Fax, Microsoft Works 2000, Microsoft Encarta 2000, Adaptec Easy CD Creator Basic (3.5c), MusicMatch Jukebox, McAfee Antivirus, and the usual assortment of ISP offers.
All of the preinstalled software works smoothly, with no hangs, inexplicable resets, or crashes that I experienced with a similarly configured Compaq Presario P500. Unlike the Compaq Presario that I returned to my local dealer shortly before buying the HP 6640C, the HP goes into suspend mode and resumes without any problems at all. This is an extremely well-configured system, with evident care taken in the selection and setup of all preinstalled software and hardware.
All preinstalled software comes on a backup CD, and the entire harddisk can be restored to the original factory settings (wiping out the harddisk) from another image on CD.
The HP CD burner has flawless burned data CDs that I've tested successfully on several other CD-ROM drives, and audio CDs that work in my car, my stereo and other CD drives. While not the fastest burner around, it is stable, steady, and works well with the bundled Adaptec CD Creator software.
One interesting feature is the HP Internet Keyboard, which has built-in keys for one-button access to the Internet (the button is backlit and comes on when you're online), integrated controls for playing music CDs, and fast access keys to email, shopping, and search engines. This feature uses HP's Surfboard utility, which sends allows you to configure a limited number of these keys to your own preferences. The email button, however, only invokes Outlook Express, and cannot be reconfigured to start other email clients such as Outlook. For the privacy-minded, it is equally interesting to note that the internet shortcuts that you hook up to the buttons operate by routing a request through HP's own servers for some reason; I haven't found any way of disabling this redirection.
Hardware expansion is moderately easy
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Up to 8MB of the installed 65MB of RAM is allocated to the video card. I immediately upgraded to 128MB by adding another DIMM (available at a discount from Crucial through HP's site; the RAM arrived in three days). Installing the RAM myself was a pain; the minitower case is packed tight. The two RAM expansion slots are located underneath the power supply. Neophyte users should not attempt this unless they're skilled and brave. I ended up with scraped knuckles.
Installing an Ethernet card into one of the three open slots (2 PCI, 1 ISA) was simpler. The slots are easy to access. Installing another harddisk in the only available half-height 3.5" drive bay was simple.
Stable and fast
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Overall, this is an excellent system: great value, operational within minutes, well-configured and useful bundled software, and well-engineered overall. Highly recommended.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
OneMoose
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