HP Pavilion a700n Desktop PC (Athlon XP 3000+, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive)

by HP

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 38 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0003V3UGM
• Item model number: PJ516AA#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 15, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The HP Pavilion a700n is a great entry level PC that doesn't sacrifice in power or performance for those on a budget. It has a 2.10 GHz Athlon XP 3000+ processor, 512 MB RAM, and an 80 GB hard drive, and is powered by Windows XP Home Edition. It's bundled with a variety of software, including HP Image Zone Plus digital photography software, aimed to get you online and capturing, editing, and sharing your digital photos, audio, and video.

The Basics

• Hard Drive: The 80 GB Ultra DMA hard drive (7200 RPM) is small in comparison to other desktop PCs in this range, and certainly smaller than you'll need if editing a lot of digital video. It does have more than adequate storage for all your documents and a good-sized library of digital photos and MP3s.
• Processor: The 2.1 GHz AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor offers a high level of performance--speedy enough for PC gaming, graphic design software, and multimedia creation. It also features a 400 MHz front-side bus (FSB) speed and a 512 KB L2 cache.
• Memory: The A700N comes with a 512 MB built-in memory (1 x 512 MB DDR SDRAM, PC2700)--a good start for power users. It only has a 1 GB maximum memory expansion (2 x 512 MB).
• CD/DVD Drive: The combo CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive can write and read CDs at 48x and rewrite at 32x speeds. It can read DVDs at 16x.
• Keyboard & Mouse: The A700N comes with an HP Internet keyboard and scroller mouse (both with PS/2 connections).

Sound and Graphics
The A700N features audio and video cards that are integrated into the computer's main board. The sound card uses the AC'97 (Audio Codec '97) standard (configurable to 6 channels of audio). The video/graphics card has up to 64 MB of shared video memory. It is suitable for good range of gaming graphics and multimedia video playback, but might not stack up for ultra-realistic 3-D PC games.

Connectivity and Expansion Slots
For expansion, the A700N has two 5.25-inch external bays (one available), two 3.5-inch bays (one available), three PCI slots (two available), and one AGP 8x slot (available). It comes with a built-in floppy drive and the following external connectors:

• 7 USB 2.0 ports (3 in front, 4 in rear) for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players
• 2 FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) ports for connecting digital video camcorders and other peripherals (1 in front, 1 in rear)
• 1 parallel port for connecting older printers and scanners
• 2 PS/2 ports for connecting keyboards and mice
• 1 VGA monitor port
• 1 serial port for older peripherals such as early PDAs
• 1 microphone, 1 headphone, and 1 line-in jack in the front
• 9-in-1 media card reader on the front, compatible with CompactFlash (Type I and II), MicroDrive, Smaredia, Memory Stick/Memory Stick Pro, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digitial, and XD Picture Card

It also has an integrated 56K modem (V.90) and an RJ-45 LAN network port (for a 10/100 Ethernet connection to networks and DSL/cable modems). It also has a hot-swappable bay for adding an optional optical drive or second battery.

Preloaded System and Software
This system comes with the Windows XP Home Edition operating system, and it also features Microsoft Works (for working with word processing and spreadsheet documents). Other preloaded software includes Quicken New User Edition 2004, Norton Antivirus 2004 (with 60-day LiveUpdate subscription) and Personal Firewall 2003, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Encarta Encyclopedia 2004 Standard Edition, HP Image Zone Plus, RecordNow 7.2 (for burning CDs), WinDVD SE 5.0 (for DVD playback), and Apple iTunes.

The included HP Image Zone Plus photo and imaging software makes it easy to organize, edit, share, print, protect, and store your photos and video clips. Organize and find your photos easily by timeline, keywords, and/or location using the unique photo-globe mapping tool. Remove red eye and fix other common problems. Share your photos quickly via e-mails that include thumbnails with links to the full-sized images--without downloading time-consuming attachments.

Dimensions and Weight
It measures 15.2 x 16.5 x 7.5 (W x D x H).

What's in the Box
This package contains the HP Pavilion A700N desktop PC, power cable, keyboard, and mouse. It is backed by a limited warranty for parts and labor for one year from date of purchase.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good, December 31, 2004

By 

Graham (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Pavilion a700n Desktop PC (Athlon XP 3000+, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

The HP Pavillion is a very good computer. It is moderately fast, has a good sized hard drive and plenty of RAM. Also it has a lot of USB ports (7) and two firewire ports. Why four stars and not five? The first one I had blew after 2-3 weeks but the new one has been fine for 3 months.

4.0 out of 5 stars good value AMD machine, January 17, 2005

By 

G. ONeill (SF Bay Area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP Pavilion a700n Desktop PC (Athlon XP 3000+, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD/CD-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

[...] Cheap! HP's reputation for quality is less than stellar, so I took the thing home and tried to kill it. Ran it all night every night for a week running multiple sessions of MS Access, playing streaming audio from the web and running a slide show from three drives (one an external USB hard drive) using several hundred images of 1-2MB each, changing every second. The CPU cooling fan ran full time. Hard drive and CD both ran almost constantly. Machine did not miss a beat. Two months later, it still works fine.

On the downside, I spent HOURS cleaning pre-installed junk software off the thing. Freed up several gigabytes of hard drive. I guess at the price, HP's only chance to make a buck is through fees from software vendors.

2006-01-02 update:
Added 512MB of memory last April to bring total to 1GB. Easy ten minute upgrade. Months later, the machine is still running with no problems... except: I installed a piece of suspect software two months ago that caused a conflict of some sort and then hang-ups at boot time. So, I moved all the date off to my USB hard drive, crossed my fingers, swallowed hard and clicked on the included HP utility that restores the machine to as-delivered condition. Less than an hour later, I had the machine in the same condition it was in as purchased. I reinstalled my software, moved my data back from the external hard drive and was back in fine shape. HP's "Restore" function works! (Do not confuse this with the Windows XP restore points. Those would not correct the problem I had after the software mishap.)