Nice Computer But.....
Written: Sep 28 '03 (Updated Oct 13 '03)
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Pros: Pretty all-inclusive system.
Cons: No recovery CD's, slow CD burner, tough to upgrade
The Bottom Line: I may go with Dell next time simply because people tell me they are easier to upgrade and better tech support.
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| xraydude888's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Pavilion 7965 (P5270AR) PC Desktop |
I bought my HP Pavilion 7965 almost two years ago. When I first bought it, I was pleasantly surprised. This was my first Windows PC after converting from Macs. The XP operating system seemed fairly easy to use from the standpoint of someone who used Macs. It had a lot of functionality and it seemed to fit my needs pretty well. My system is a 1.7Ghz P4, 80GB hard drive. It came with 512MB of RAM, but with some difficulty, I upgraded it to 768MB. I also added a USB 2.0 port as well. Well, HP says that it is a 80GB hard drive, but only about 70GB is usable by the owner. HP has a hidden 10GB partition which you really can't access because that's where it hides Windows and the "recovery disk". I use the computer to mainly access the web and also to edit digital photos and video that I've taken. It runs PhotoShop and other editing software with aplomb. I haven't really tried any games on it. I leave those to my dedicated consoles.
Up to about a week ago, I was pretty pleased with the computer. The only major complaints I had was that the CD burner was pretty slow compared to others on the market. The other thing was that it was a pain to upgrade the computer. My friends have Dells or self-built computers and they told me the HP's were a bear to upgrade. The problem is that, for instance, to add RAM, you have to take the case apart, and take out the fan casing to get to the RAM slots. Same for adding PCI cards.
Well, everything was going well until last week when booting up, I got the ominous message, to paraphrase, "Imminent Drive Failure, Back Up Your Data" I couldn't even boot the computer after this message came up. I took out my hard drive and tried to slave it to a friend's computer and my friend's computer wouldn't even acknowledge the drive. OK, so the drive was fried. After less than 2 years!!! 80 GB gone. Luckily, I had most of my data backed up. Everyone I spoke to told me that it seemed unusual for a hard drive to fail after less than two years. I wonder if this is a HP quality control issue or an issue with the hard drive manufacturer (Maxtor).
I don't know if HP's now come with recovery disks, but mine did not. Of course, HP was so proud of the "recovery disk" that they store on your hard drive in that secret partition you can't reach. But that doesn't help when the drive is nothing better than a paperweight. So I called HP Customer Service. I got some guy in India (who probably took a job away from an American). After some wrangling, he offered to send me the recovery disks. Of course, for a fee. I was angry. It probably doesn't cost HP more than $1 to include those disks with the computer, if the company had wanted to. But now I have to pay for disks???? To HP's credit, at least it sent the disks by FedEx 2 Day delivery instead of ground. So I got my recovery CD's and I put in a new hard drive and hopefully I won't have any other problems.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1200
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Other
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
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Epinions.com ID:
xraydude888
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Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 3 members
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