- Large Capacity Hard Drive
- Good Pricing
- Media Card Reader
- No Speakers Included
- Intel Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Processor with 800MHz Frontside Bus
- 512MB PC3200 DDR Memory
- 160GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
- 4x DVD+RW Burner and 48x CD-ROM Optical Drives
- Integrated AC'97 Audio w/o Speakers
- NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 Graphics Card with 128MB Memory
- v.92 56Kbps Modem and Intel 10/100 Ethernet Port
- Six USB 2.0 Ports, Two FireWire Ports and a 7-in-1 Media Card Reader
- Windows XP Home Operating System and Microsoft Works 7.0 Suite
2/11/04 - HP seems to have gone through a rapid succession of models in the last year. The most recent is the 400 series of system with the Pavilion a450n being their mainstream desktop model.
The Pavilion a450n is powered by the Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz CPU with 800MHZ bus. Combined with the 512MB of PC3200 memory, this should provide enough computing power for the most demanding tasks. Older versions matched this CPU with slower PC2700 memory, so this is a clear improvement.
Storage has also been improved from previous models. Hard drive space has been increased up to 160GB allowing lots of room for large digital files such as photos or movies. Included is a 4x DVD+RW and 16x DVD-ROM. It is somewhat disappointing to see HP stick with the +R format rather than including a multiformat drive for higher compatbility with consumer players.
Graphics on the system are powered by the NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 graphics card. This is a fully DirectX 9 compatible card, but it is severely restricted in many 3D games due to its slower core. Audio is fairly disappointing. The integrated AC'97 audio solution is capable of 6 channel audio, but HP fails to include any speakers with the base computer system.
Overall the HP Pavilion a450n is a very solid system. It is definitely an improvement over the older a350n system, but it still has room for improvements. Its multimedia capabilities are mixed. A few upgrades can easily solve these problems though.
