HP Pavilion p6-2120 Desktop PC Review

HP still makes awesome Pavilion desktops. 4 years later I am still using the one below!

 

I think I have mentioned before that my desktop PC was getting up in age. I purchased it in April of 07 which means that it just passed the 5 year mark. That is a record for me. And while it it still doing ok meaning everything still works, it is definitely not all that fast anymore. I was recently contacted by Staples.com to do a review and I knew exactly what I wanted find on the site. I had just been thinking about how it was about time to replace my desktop. I had been looking around and dreaming, but I had not made any decisions yet.

I spotted the HP Pavilion p6-2120 on the Staples website, took one look at the specs, and knew that was the one. The specifications are super and the price was right. It is amazing how much prices have changed since I purchased my desktop 5 years ago. You can now get a very decent desktop computer for less than the price of an iPad. The p6-2120 is currently $379.99 on Staples.com. That is over $600 less than I paid for my other desktop 5 years ago. Some of the specs of the p6-2120 include 6gb of RAM, 1 TB hard drive, and 16x Super Multi DVD Optical Drive to name a few.

 

Highlights:

• AMD Quad-Core A6-3620 Accelerated Processor
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 6GB DDR3 system memory
• 1TB (Terabyte) hard drive stores up to 221,000 songs or 177,000 photos
• SuperMulti DVD burner
• AMD Radeon™ HD 6530D Graphics
• 6-in-1 memory card reader
• 24 x 7 toll-free phone support, one-year HP limited warranty, lifetime use of  HP Support Assistant provide priceless peace of mind

One major plus for me is that the HP p6-2120 comes equipped with a dual video card. It has inputs for both VGA and DVI. This means that I do not have to worry about purchasing and installing one myself. The dual video card in my old desktop had just started to go bad and my VGA input was putting out a lovely blue display. Nice… NOT! This new machine did not come with a monitor so I hooked it up to one of my existing 22″ Dell Monitors for now.  When I finish copying over my files and move the other monitor it will have 2 displays.

As you can see by the above photo there are four USB ports on the back. There are also two in front which totals 6 USB ports. That is nice. Some older machines (like my old desktop) only have four. Also the Multicard reader in the front makes it super easy to transfer files from your camera.

Since I am a true geek I had to crack it open and see expansion potential. Apparently HP wanted to make sure that only those who really know what they are doing get in the machine. LOL! Although the case is closed by only one screw it is a non-standard hex type (don’t ask me the technical name), so I had to search in my bits to find one that fit (rhyming not intentional HA!) However, if I had a flat head wide enough that would have done the job as well. I was pleasantly surprised to find one PCIe X16 slot available, as well as 3 PCIe X1 slots available. This means that if I need to I can add cards for things like firewire, a TV tuner, or more to my computer. Or, if I decided that I want both of my monitors hooked up to DVI I can easily add a dual DVI video card. Although there are only 2 memory slots currently holding 6gb of RAM, it is upgradeable to 8GB of RAM.

The WEI (Windows Experience Rating) of this machine is a 5.9 on a scale of 1 – 7.9. This is not bad at all. And the only thing holding it back is the hard drive speed. Rumor is that only SSD drives get beyond that score these days… so I will take it.

I have not encountered any problems or cons out of this computer yet. It is awesome. It has a small footprint so it fits nicely under my desk, and the features should keep it at the top of its game for a long time to come.

If you are in need of a reasonable desktop computer, check this one out on Staples.com. Yes, Staples has a lot more than just office supplies. Although, I do kind of get lost in the office supply area. 🙂

Disclosure: The fine folks at Staples provided me with this HP Pavilion to review. Feel free to check out their full line of desktop computers.