Not bad but not great either...
Written: Mar 19 '02
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Quality of Tech Support: |
 |
|
|
Pros: Low cost easy turn-key computer.
Cons: Limited software package and built-ins are hard to get rid of.
The Bottom Line: Basic computing is no trouble for it but if you have anything more taxing than word processing and internet surfing, spend a little more cash and save yourself some grief.
|
|
|
| jwimberley's Full Review: Hewlett Packard HP Pavilion 7950 (P5158A#ABA) PC D... |
I bought my HP 7950 from Best Buy about 6 months ago. I had up until this point always built my own machines by ordering parts from various companies and designing what I wanted from scratch.
Well, I thought this would be cheaper and it was except for the cost of my frustration later...
After getting the computer home I realized that there was not very much useful software loaded on it. That is not to say there wasn't much software loaded, it just wasn't very useful. I haven't used any of the pre-loaded programs with the exception of Microsoft Money and even that I have upgraded to the current version.
The keyboard special controls were really nice features for the first two months and then they stopped working. I called HP for support and after 30 minutes on hold I had a rep tell me to reinstall the drivers from the recovery disks. He walked me through the process and after we were done all of my software was gone. The recovery disk did not just reinstall the drivers it took the hard drive back to factory specs. It wouldn't have been a big deal to just reinstall office and the few other programs I had put on but I lost everything that was in My Documents as well. Thankfully I had backups or hard copies of everything but it was a real pain getting everything back to normal. When I did get everything reinstalled I realized that the keyboard special controls would not work with my Logitech digital camera. They are conflicted on some level... I haven't cared enough to try to get the keyboard special controls working again.
Since the disaster with HP support I haven't tried to use them again. It is just easier to stumble through the on-line help and find the answers myself.
In hindsight I should have formatted the drive and done a clean install of just the software I needed from the beginning. The fact is I wanted a cheap computer and that is exactly what I got...
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 749
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): Over 50
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
jwimberley
|
|
Member: Joshua Wimberley
Location: Odessa, TX
Reviews written: 26
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
Always looking to improve my writing. Please leave comments if you think they will help!
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.