A Review of the HP Pavilion Elite M9150F Desktop PC

The HP Pavilion Elite M9150F Desktop PC is the top of the line of HP's multimedia center desktops. It truly is packed with goodies and unlike Apple isn't going to cost you your first born. The competitiveness of the home entertainment industry, which has recently been fueled by the plummeting prices of HD televisions, has really stimulated fierce competition among computer manufacturers producing multimedia centers like this one. It is good news for us because we get better and better desktops and better and better prices. I'm going to let you know if this "elite" HP really lives up to its weighty title. Let's start with the basics.

Hardware:

Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600

Storage: 2 360GB hard drives yielding a total of 720GB (plus removable external hard drive bays for further expandibility)

RAM: 3GB (expandable up to a maximum of 8GB)

Graphics Accelerator: Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT graphics

TV Tuner: NTSC and ATSC

Optical Drive: HD DVD ROM, CD R RW with integrated dual layer DVD +/- Burner

Included: Remote, wireless mouse and keyboard

I love the options that the optical drives give on this desktop. It truly makes a statement with its high definition compatibility. The integrated TV tuner is another excellent edition allowing for you to be able to tap into Vista's multimedia abilities and essentially becoming a digital video recorder. You'll have plenty of room on the dual hard drives to collect a great deal of high definition programming. If you happen to run out of room you can use HP's proprietary external hard drive system through their included bays to just drop in more hard drives for space. This has truly been thoroughly engineered.

I would like to see a little more RAM, I know I'm getting greedy but with everything else maxed out it is a little disappointing to just see the 3 GB. Think of Vista as taking up a good deal of 2GB of RAM, it doesn't leave you much left over for your ancillary programs.

Connectivity:

WiFi (for connecting to your local wireless network)

1 Ethernet port (to connect with a cord to your LAN)

6 2.0 USB ports (to connect to most peripherals like mice, digital cameras, printers etc.)

2 Firewire ports (use these to transfer data quickly between two devices like a digital camcorder and your PC)

1 VGA (to connect to a typical monitor)

1 S-Video (connect to a projector)

1 DVI (connect to some monitors or some televisions)

1 HDMI (for connecting to a HD television)

The connectivity is superb. It has everything I want to see to be able to act as a receiver in my living room. The HD outputs will go to televisions and the audio outputs will handle a 5.1 sound system. The firewire ports allow you to input your own video and the power of the M9150F really make this a viable option for video editing. At about half the costs of some of Mac's Pro series I'm fairly certain a lot of consumers will be looking at HP's Elite series pretty hard.

At $1148 right now I wouldn't expect to see it drop too much lower anytime soon. It is a good deal at this price and will make about anyone happy. It is a very robust desktop with a lot to offer.