We've all done it, walked out of a shop who hopes for more than we expected walking in. HP that consumers spent from walking under $ 600 - that instead of just buying a software upgrade for an aging system, they will take the opportunity offered by the arrival of Windows 7 to the treatment, a stylish new all-in-one PC. The pavilion MS214 has not only Windows 7 Home Basic preinstalled, it has the classic one-piece design of a more expensive Apple iMac or HP TouchSmart (although) not on its touch screen. The 18.5-inch LCD screen is bigger than the old 15 - or 17-inch CRT, it will probably be replaced. The environment is as easy as plugging in the mouse, keyboard and power cord. It comes with smooth HP MediaSmart software for managing photos, videos and music, as well as a webcam and WiFi. And while $ 600 is not exactly an impulse buy, it's only a few hundred dollars more than a cheap generic PCs - an offer that the "simple, elegant, and tower-free desktop" touted by the advertising sticker on the HP front panel.
On the other hand, that gambling HP Smart Shopper (supported by smart sellers or buyers) is not the fault of the MS214 for only nettop like the Asus Eee Top 1602 and eMachines EZ1601. Instead of a nettop is modest, single-core Intel Atom processor and 1 GB of RAM, the Pavilion has an AMD Athlon X2 3250e - a 1.5 GHz dual-core CPU with two times 512 KB Level 2 cache - and 2 GB of DDR2 memory and a 320GB hard drive and a DVD ± RW burner. And although there is no fire-breathing gamers, the HP ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics easily surpass the shameful Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics of nettops and netbooks.
No obvious omissions
The all-in-one would be a natural complement for a wireless keyboard and mouse, but apparently the economy dictates a keyboard and mouse, which take two of the four USB 2.0 ports on the back of the machine. The two input devices are generic pieces, an optical mouse with scroll wheel and a keyboard with audio volume control and a medium-sized, moderately clunky typing. The four USB ports occupy the back next to the power outlet for laptop, the HP-style power supply and audio and Ethernet ports. Families with a WiFi router at home can ignore the Ethernet port and hook to the Internet via 802.11b / g wireless.
Two more USB ports, headphone and microphone jacks and a six-in-one (SD / SDHC / MMC / xD / MS / MS Pro) flash card readers are available on the left side of the display there, and the right holds DOWN buttons for the brightness of the screen and the eject button for the DVD ± RW drive. The power switch is on the bottom right of the front panel.
The system is approximately 15.5 by 18.5 by 8 inches. There is no tilt adjustment for the display, but a good selection, and it is easy to rotate to the unit from side to side. The ad follows today's HD 16:9 screen ratio mode, albeit at a lowish resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels, it is enough for 720p video, but. More importantly, the screen is bright and sharp, with vivid colors and crisp text and symbols. The built-in speakers are not a threat to the Bose or Bang & Olufsen, but perfectly OK for the enjoyment of audio and on-line CDs or DVDs.
We have already mentioned MediaSmart, which a friendly mini-menu of music, photo, video offers a webcam, and DVD-adapted tools from HP TouchSmart stylish desktop software. This top Windows Media Player and Windows Media Center, by organizing search a wide variety of possibilities, and to enjoy CDs, MP3s, images and video. Other bundled software includes CyberLink suite of CD and DVD burning and backup tools, Microsoft Works, and a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security.
Ambling Right Along
The HP is not for benchmark speed tests built (the Windows Experience Index, dragged himself through sub-Aero-value is a graphic one) wimpy 2.9 to 7.9 of the operating-point scale. But we were curious, so we can report that the sample MS214 Cinebench R10-scene rendered in five and a half minutes. That is slow for the two minutes required by a deluxe quad-core desktop in comparison, but it's like lightning in addition to the 17 minutes taken a nettop like the eMachines EZ1601 - whose Sysmark 2007 Preview guests and Quake III Arena game frames per second, HP nearly doubled at 63 and 103, respectively.
Of course, Quake III is 10 years old, the latest modern games like Crysis will not run on the MS214, but the 3DMark06 value of 1,021 (compared with the eMachines '83 show), it's like a puzzle or strategy games viable platform if not a first-person shooter. Performance applications in everyday life is bold enough to appear some dialog boxes to a moment, rather than show up immediately, but we never felt we had to wait.
We like the idea of the pavilion, all-in-one very well. There is no reason that the majority of PC users who do not take care of expansion slots and free drive bays can not be satisfied with a stylish desktop (though it reminds us of drive bays, one eSATA port for the next time you ask). And there is no reason to put up a piece of desktops, high price premiums. Three or four gigabytes of memory would be better than two, but the MS214 avoids the weaknesses of nettops and provides a solid computing experience.
We do not give higher praise because it has competition: When we reviewed the Lenovo C300, we found the availability of $ 549 configuration with a dual-core Atom CPU, 4 GB of RAM and a 20-inch LCD display. That's more memory and a bigger screen for $ 50 less. HP have to hope that customers do not get lost Lenovo gear.