Customer Reviews

HP Media Center m7260n Photosmart PC (Intel Pentium D Processor 830, 1 GB RAM, 300 GB Hard Drive, DVD SuperMulti with LightScribe)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My HP Photosmart PC works like a charm. I've had it for about 4 months now and it is flawless. If you can take advantage of the features avaliable such as: Media Center, Memory card slots (CF, SD, etc), Great Graphics (the provided ATI Radeon x350 does the job and more), Litescribe Burner, Dvd Burner, Dvd Player, and much more, then this product is for you.

Things you can do with XP Media Center-
-Play movies from a distance, yes that includes dvds (w/ the indcluded remote control SPECIFICALLY for the computer)
-Watch live tv (through a connected coax cable)
-Record live tv and watch it whenever you want
-Get an actual cable guide right on the computer (it downloads the program guide from the actual tv station)
-Listen to the radio
-View pictures
-I'm sure there is more I am leaving out

Specs:
(side note: everything is upgradable)
There are no complaints in this department. The Pentium D processor does exactly what is expected of it, runs flawless. The ram is the standard 1GB you get with any PC purchase. The hardrive space is -plenty-. And trust me, if you're recording your favorite shows left and right... you'll need the space.

--Final thoughts

I've listed many of the pros, but here are a few cons (very minor flaws)

-There is lots of preinstalled software one could do without.
Fix: Start-->Control Panel-->Add/Remove Programs

-The format XP Media Center records videos to is a large file type.
Fix: There are plenty of programs out on the web that can convert the XP Media Center recorded TV files into avi, mpg, etc. Just "Google it".

-If you are recording shows and want to save them forever, you may run into hard drive space issues.
Fix: Buy an extra hardrive (easily installable, it slides right in through the front) or read the fix above to solve hd space issues.

End Cons.

That's about it folks. This PC is made for the video/tv show/picture viewing consumer. This PC is -NOT- for the average computer user that just wants a computer to browse the internet with.

Oh and by the way, to all the gamers out there, this is a great gaming PC. (the video card is upgradable, of course.)

I bought the big brother version of this unit and most of it worked except for burning CDs & DVDs. After hours of calls via India and several US location, my machine will not even recognize the drives. This is all after sending the CPU back to HP to fix and it still came back broken. They now want me to wipe 9 months of data and start new, and then send it again to HP. They will make no commitments as to how many times I will have to return it for repairs. They are just stalling for the warranty expiration. Totally unethical!

My computer shipped about a week EARLIER than I expected. Unfortunately, it came preloaded with soooo much extra junk - games, trial programs, miscellaneous internet provider links etc, that it does not seem to run that much faster than my old AMD Athlon 900 mHz processor. The Media Center features are cool, especially since you can use the remote. I do find the My Music feature to be rather cumbersome, but then again, I haven't read the manual on how to do it properly, either! I think that if an advanced user has trouble with initial setup, then a rookie will have bigger troubles.