Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion A61

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

First, ordered this from Amazon and delivery was fast! It actually got here a week before the monitor (Samsung 226).

HP a6130n is a prebuilt desktop so you can't "customize" it. But for the value, you get alot of bang for your buck. Also, according to a friend who works for HP, the prebuilts don't have as many "issues" as those you customize. Since I've only had the machine up and running for less than a week and have not ever owned a "customized" HP, I do not know this first hand.

I see other users and pro reviewers have said the graphics is weak, but as a nongamer, the picture looks great.

Drawbacks: I wish hp would change 2 things.
1. it does not have a digital monitor output. Apparently that's pretty standard in new systems. According to an hp rep, this system has been available since June 2007 (despite what it says on the Amazon page).
2. lots of noise! It's very loud when I start it up or when I open up a program. I see another reviewer has praised how quiet this system is so I'm not sure whether I have a bummer one or not.
2.5 mouse-(minor, minor issue)- roller ball mouse, who knew they still made them?


Update: had to send it back. I talked to 4 different HP techs regarding the grinding noise. The last cs person I talked to was very knowledgable and nice. After running some diagnostics and actually listening to the noise over the phone, the guys at hp think this particular one I got has hard drive issues. But I have to say, the techs I chatted with online and phone were all incredibly nice.

How they can pack this much computing power into such a low price is beyond me (oh wait...free trade). Seriously, this thing is a monster. The dual core AMD processor is super fast and can handle a million things at once. You also have more than enough RAM for your needs, which is nice since Vista is such a memory hog. Vista uses about 1GB of RAM, so really you have 2GB of usuable RAM, which is still more than enough for the average user. Also, at 400GB of storage, you're not likely to run out of room any time soon.

As others have pointed out, the ONLY weakness with the system is the graphics card. If you are going to do any sort of gaming on this (or any serious photo work) you really must upgrade the graphics card, as the integrated one is just barely adequate. Its enough to run the Vista themes on a basic level, and you can obviously watch videos and such, but it really chugs on games and also if you're doing any serious photo editing. Also, it would have been nice if they would have thrown in a wireless network card (but alot of desktop PC's dont have them) so if you have a wireless network, add another 50 bucks or so for a decent (and Vista capable) wireless card. Other than that I really have no complaints about this computer. HP's are great, my last one lasted for years and they are easy to upgrade so I expect to have this around for a long time. What else...lightscribe DVD burner, memory card reader, USB ports up the yin-yang, expansion bays and audio inputs / outputs on the front of the computer...this just about has it all. And, its cool looking to boot.


OBTW...those of you complaining about lack of restore / installation discs...did you even open or read the owner's manual? On just about the first page it tells you how to burn your own recovery discs from the Recovery partition. So do NOT pay HP $29 for discs! Just follow the instructions in the manual and burn your restore discs onto 2 DVD's!

In sum, this is about the best bang for your buck right now. I actually switched back to Windows from using Macs the past couple years and this thing blows the Mac away in every aspect (except graphics.) Great machine, awesome price, and HP support actually speaks intelligible English and generally answer the phone within 2 minutes. As far as the computing world goes, HP is on top of all aspects of the game. Very happy with this purchase.

After reading the reviews I feel I must comment. First, don't by this computer at Amazon. I bought this computer at BestBuy two months ago for $200 dollars less than it is listed here.
I bought this computer after reading the specs and KNOWING that the video card sucked. I fully intend to by a better video card for this computer as soon as the cash becomes available however, after going to Nvidia website and downloading the latest drivers and patches I've had very few problems with freezes and crashes.
I built my last computer and couldn build one this cheap for the price. Also, the hard drive is awesome. It is 400GB which holds a ton of videos, songs, and pictures. It has 3 GB of memory. It costs almost as much to buy 3 GB of memory as the whole system costs. It IS quiet! My roommate thought I was working on my computer while it was turned off the other day and wash shocked to realize that it just doesn't make any noise.
I would reccomend this computer to anyone who wants a great computer but doesn't play any directX 10 gams or for those who do play high powered games but know how to install their own peripherals (which is not all difficult for those who have more knowledge than how to operate a Mac.)
It is a great system for those who want a $1500 computer, but don't have $1500 dollars on them. Buy this system and add the card later.

Amazon delivered the Computer in two days. I have it up and running loaded with all the programs I used. I like it and I am not having a bit of problems with Windows Vista Home Premium...I like the new features. No Floppy Drive in the computer. I have purchased an External Floppy Drive (CD-RW's can't replace the convenience of the 3.5" floppy).

I recomment HP Computers...You can go to Hp WebSite and download Maunals and also obtain CD's for Recovery items if the Recovery Drive (D) in the computer is not available.

First, for the money you spend on this thing, you can't expect a high end video card for new games. Nobody is going to toss in a $500 video card when the whole package goes for $600.
The integrated video actually does a decent job at older games such as Unreal Tournament 2004 and anything else that isn't too demanding.
My biggest complaint is the keyboard. It is cheap and quite unresponsive.
Some don't like the mouse, since it is mechanical. Personally, I hate optical mice and feel that a mechanical mouse that is kept clean or a trackball is a better choice.

Windows Vista is great. But expect a few headaches for compatibility when you get any kind of brand new operating system. Don't blame it on HP.

Update: 250watt PSU is somewhat limiting. BUT, it seems HP is no longer using proprietary PSU connections. Older HP systems had a bottleneck with proprietary connections, making power-hungry upgrades very difficult. In fact, I'm pretty sure I overstressed and eventually fried my last HP by overstressing the stock proprietary PSU.

This is no longer the case. Any standard power supply should work. So when the time comes to upgrade your graphics card, you may need to get a new PSU.

This computer is one of the fastest computers you can get on the market. The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6Ghz) is extremely powerful for handling those graphic intense applications. The 400GB SATA II Hard Drive is Ultra-Fast and Ultra-Quiet; in fact the whole system can't even be heard! The DVD-RW/+RW DL LightScribe drive has Ultra-Fast read and write speeds. Data transfer is extremely fast between the Optical Drive and the Hard Drive, thanks to SATA cabling (Yes, the DVD drive is connected through SATA, which is new to the market). The power supply is 250w. The 3GB of DDR2-800 RAM is Ultra-Fast and provides plenty of extra RAM for Vista to utilize. The a6130n has a integrated GeForce 6150SE featuring Nvidia TurboCache Technology. It features dedicated 64MB of DDR2 with 256MB of RAM (Shared). All-in-all with the Vista Graphics memory allocation it is 1071MB of Shared Graphics Memory. The GPU is the one downfall of this system. But for non-hardcore gamers, this system is the ulitmate for the price. Highly Recommended!

Purchased this machine from Best Buy in mid-September. At the same time, I purchased an updated video card, supporting two monitors, one DVI (Digitial), more powerful power supply, and two extra GIGS of RAM - total price including tax $1,015.13

Expertise: 23 years PC software development and support.

Problems: Yes, there were problems, primarily with Vista. Yes, it hung nearly every day, even with the UAC turned off.

Pros: FAST! ahem, with XP Professional. Put this OS on last night, brought all drivers up-to-date, and this system screams! I am getting superior graphics quality on both monitors, frame rates in my games of about 130 FPS equalling smooth game play. This will translate into faster video development.

Support: A 5 on a scale of 1 - 10. Had to contact them for the Vista Restore media. Phone support would not send it to me, not even if I paid. Could not get it online, but, via chat @ 1:00 AM, they are sending it to me for free!

Folks, Vista is just not ready yet for all makes, models, and types of equipment. Sure it can and does work in certain scenarios, but not a lot yet on a lot of equipment.

Remember, XP had the same issues - incompatible with many pieces of equipment, until a few years passed and now, XP is very good OS.

Your comments or questions are welcomed: rdkram@gmail.com

I am absolutely loving this computer. It is super fast, looks great, has a ton of memory, great features, nice cd/dvd drive, intel core 2 and most of all, Vista. Vista is amazing and I havent had one problem with it. I'm shocked how much you get for this great affordable price. I have always stuck with HP because I have always been pleased with their products. They are the best! Get this model with the HP w1907 lcd screen and you wont be disappointed.

PS... The recovery is built-in and you can simply make a backup cd.

I have this exact model but didn't buy it from Amazon. Vista works fine, I haven't had any lockups. After installing some Earthlink software it now gives me a message that it has blocked some programs at startup. It lets you see the programs it didn't allow to run and allows you to run them but doesn't give you the option of allowing them to run automatically at startup. The only way to do that as far as I can tell is if Defender quarantines the program. No items show up in the allowed items list for you to "select". The procedure outlined in the help section doesn't seem to work. Someday I'll have someone more skilled in computer software look at it. Anyway that's a Vista thing not an HP issue. The problem I had was the bluetooth keyboard was not working properly. If the computer went to sleep, moving the mouse did not wake it up. When you got it to wake up, the mouse would not work unless you unplugged the bluetooth dongle in the back of the conputer. For a while it would reconnect if you pressed the "Connect" buttons on both devices. Well after a while all bluetooth functions stopped working completely. (Keyboard & Mouse) I determined that it was a hardware problem by connecting a matched set of Dell bluetooth items from a new Dell computer that I bought for work. Everything worked fine. Swapped back and forth, HP dead, Dell fine. Called for HP support. They asked so many questions and did so many things to my computer that had nothing to do with the problem, as the problem wasn't fixed. All I wanted was a new bluetooth dongle to try and even wanted to pay for it. HP tech support talked me into a remote session where they take control of the computer. BIG MISTAKE! He was going into the regedit file changing all kinds of numbers, deleting stuff from my startup folder, etc. I suppose he though he would speed up my computer, but I had so many problems after he messed with it I had to do a restore to a date two days before and everything worked fine again! Then I took the Bluetooth dongle to the dealer and he tried it in the demo computer. Didn't work! He gave me an extra one he had laying around, took it home and it works fine. I told the tech support person it worked fine with the Dell bluetooth hardware. They just don't seem to know when to give up on settings and software issues and start thinking that it could be a hardware problem. I have purchased 6 Dell computers and had heard they had great tech support. The reason I kept buying Dell is that I never needed tech support and none of the computers ever broke!
That said, the reason my last two computer purchases have been HP is because of price and size of the desktop. The Dell desktop boxes were just too big. The only small one had the cd-rom drive mounted vertically and I don't care for that. This box is so much smaller than the Dell. I keep it on the left side of my desk and smaller is better. Maybe the Dells give you more room inside for expansion but I won't need that. Also, Dell is a bit pricey nowadays. I just bought an HP 15.4" laptop that was loaded with features like 2GB mem. 2.2Gig Core 2 Duo, wireless N, + Bluetooth, Webcam, biometric reader, 1394 input, HDMI out, and many more cool features. I printed out the list and tried to customize a dell laptop and couldn't even come close on the price! Plus the HP has a two year warranty included. It' a little heavy though because it has the large battery. All in all I'd say HP is doing a great job recapturing market share in the PC world and they are doing it by offering a great product at a resonable price!

Value seems to be the common thread in many of the reviews-and I agree. This hp is an excellent choice for the general user--and with some simple mods just about anyone else except very demanding gamers who will need a much beefier system. I'm a bit on the fence with Vista-be warned it can be a little qirky. That aside--your getting an excellent computer for this price!!