Product Review: HP's High End Media Center PC the HP M8040N

When a PC is labeled a media center PC then that usually means that it is going to demand a premium. Often consumers will ask me if they're worth the dough. Well that all depends on the needs of the owner. I've gotten my hands on the HP Media Center Pavilion M8040N and I'm going to let you know what it is capable of and what sort of consumer is going to get the most out of it. First let's get started with a few of the fundamentals.

Hardware:

Tuner: NTSC / ATSC

Processor: 2.13 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 dual-core

Storage Space: (2) 320 GB hard drives (for a 640 GB total)

RAM: 2GB of RAM (this can be upgraded to a 8 GB maximum)

Optical drive: HD DVD drive and a CD R/RW with integrated 16x DVD +/- burner

I love the dual core Intel on this media center. It is perfect when you consider the cost benefit analysis and its main function - not to play games but to play music, edit photos and video. Continuing on with the media center design you notice the two huge hard drives making for a over a half TB of storage space. That is plenty of room for movies and MP3s. I like how it has an HD DVD ROM although a BluRay ROM would be better for obvious reason. The boot times are decent, not the fastest, but can be improved with some tweaking.

Connectivity:

6 2.0 USB ports (these are the standard connections for peripherals such as printers, digital cameras and mp3 players)

2 FireWire ports (these are designed for high speed transfer and can be between digital camcorders or even other compatible PCs)

1 Composite video input

1 VGA output (a typical monitor connection)

1 HDMI output (a connection that is used to display HD imagines on a high definition television)

1 S-Video input

1 audio output / 1 microphone in

2 PS/2 ports (old school input device ports)

15 in 1 media card reader (these slots allow the consumer to directly insert memory from their mobile devices into the PC)

The connectivity on this notebook is nice and entertainment oriented. This computer is designed for music, movies, and picture editing and presenting. If you're a gamer this isn't your best option. This isn't the fasted desktop around but it is a lot of fun and a perfect PC for a family. The current average online retail price is $1400. This is about right on target. There may be some price reductions on this model around the August sales period however since this isn't a student marketed PC I wouldn't expect too much.