HP Pavilion A6230N Desktop PC (AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 5600+, 3 GB RAM, 400 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)

List Price: $894.00 Discount Price: $879.83

Features:

• Sleek and shiny black-and-silver desktop with 2.8 GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ dual-core processor
• 400 GB hard drive, 3 GB RAM (8 GB max), 16x dual-layer DVD burner with LightScribe disc printing
• Open drive bay for an optional HP Pocket Media Drive; Nvidia GeForce 6150 video/graphics card with 128 MB of dedicated memory
• Connectivity: six USB 2.0; two FireWire; 15-in-1 memory card reader; 10/100 Fast Ethernet
• Pre-installed with Windows Vista Home Premium (with Media Center capabilities)

Accessories:
Dragon NaturallySpeaking 9 Standard	Microsoft Office Standard 2007 FULL VERSION	Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007	Norton Internet Security 2008 up to 3 Users	Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0

Customer Reviews:

Lot of bang for the buck [Posted on 2008-01-12]
Nice Tower, decent room inside for a minitower. Vista can be a pain sometimes but thats not HP's fault. Gets the job done for a good price.

A well-rounded machine [Posted on 2008-01-21]
I purchased a refurbished model. It is likely that HP will be discontinuing this one as faster chips come out (AMD Phenom, for example), but I trust it as HP stands behind their products. Give it some patience, call tech support as you need them, and you should enjoy your machine quite a lot.

This machine is built to be part-productive, part-home entertainment like its big brother the M8200n. The productivity comes from its raw power (Running 2GB spreadsheets in Excel 2007 posed no problem for this bad boy), the entertainment from its five-speaker audio output and the 6150 video card. Yes, a 6150 is technically obsolete, but it will play DVDs fairly well. Unfortunately, to get really crisp picture you need to replace the video card with one that has DVI output (GeForce 7300 and up) - there's a PCI express slot available for this expansion, although there's no way to utilize SLI (two video cards) for high-end gaming. That's fine for me, it's an excessively pricey hobby, but it does show some limitations.

Vista is not as much of a hamstring as I had thought, it just takes some time to get used to where everything is now. Note that I have Vista Premium pre-loaded. The additional memory utilization is a plus.

There are only two complaints. The phone modem is bottom-of-the-line and slow as can be. It was also not entirely inserted into its PCI slot. It will likely be replaced in the next year anyway. Although there are two PCI slots on the motherboard, there's very little room to put anything else in there.

The video card (Nvidia GeForce 6150) is much maligned by high-end gamers who shouldn't be looking for a power-gaming PC for less than $1,000, anyway. Still, it runs what it runs very rapidly.

One last little note: the pre-installed HP Games only have limited use. Much to my wife's chagrin, she can only play Mah Jhong five times before we have to go online and purchase more "tokens". I'll just be picking up some bargain jewel case software instead, thank you much.

Dont buy refurbished [Posted on 2008-01-31]
This HP 6230N PC was listed on Amazon as a brand new unit. Even though the price seemed too good to be true (it was). I checked and rechecked the description and it indeed was supposed to be new. When it arrived, it was clearly a refurbished unit. I contacted the seller, J&R audio and computer and they said I could refuse the shipment or accept a free 2 year warrantee. Even though I was disturbed by the "mistake" on Amazon I accepted the offer.

What a mistake.

Here is the short list of what is wrong with it.
1. Power cable to optical drive was not connected to drive.
2. Data cable to HP Pocket Drive reader was not connected to mobo
3. PCI-e x16 slot does not work, does not recognize any cards inserted into it.
4."Up" arrow key on keyboard stuck.
5. Small ding in face of pocket drive reader.
In addition there are various screws loose in the case.

I went through the proper channels, even contacted HP for help (they were fine) and they wanted me to send it to HP for warrantee repair. I have only had this unit for one week. If the technicians that repair these products are the same ones that refurbish them, I decline.

Other than these major issues, everything else seemed to work fine. Vista worked without a hitch and computer seemed to really speed through just about anything. Of course, I couldn't play any games because the PCI-e slot was bad...

So, after a week, this is going back. Prior to this I have never purchased anything "refurbed" and am not likely to ever again.

Almost perfect [Posted on 2008-02-13]
I would highly recommend this product. Performance is very good for everyday tasks as e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, etc. However, if you are planning to use it for games, I recommend you buy a better video card.
Finally, everything you have heard about Windows Vista does not begin to accurately describe the experience. I guess the pressure to put the product in the market after such a long wait was overwhelming, and it shows. If you can, I suggest you "downgrade" to Windows XP. Less learning curve, much better performance and you will be happier.

hp pavilion [Posted on 2008-03-22]
Nice computer and working well so far.
It came fully loaded, but would have been better if it was in a packaged deal with a monitor and printer. It really becomes more expensive when you have to buy these components separately.

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