HP Pavilion 8505

“ The more you pay the better deal you get”

Can we take this statement true, yes and no, again it all depends on the product which you are buying. Since the first computer was invented, things have been changing faster and to keep up the pace, the best can only survive but for a consumer it is very difficult because today you 1ghz processors and tomorrow you will have 2 ghz processors. Consumers before buying any computer system should understand, its important that you should buy a system which is easily upgradeable.

Their has been debate in the last 4 years on whether to go for a branded system or assembled system. I would go in for a assembled system for a home segment and Branded system for a Company, because the service provided for a bulk system is well managed by the Computer Vendors. But when it comes to home segment you cant expect for a Branded company to give you a service.

“LOOKS are deceptive” Who ever said that how true he must be, I had fallen for this system

Hardware : HP Pavilion 8505, Intel PIII 450Mhz, 64mb Ram, 10g.b HDD, 40x max speed cd rom drive, Rockwell Modem, Nvidia Riva TNT Graphics, MPEG Full motion digital video

Software : Win 98, MS Money 2000, MS Works, Mcafee Virus

Description of the system looks lucrative right and the model is really a beauty with a huge price tag of 60, 000Rs(1, 400$) and I was really happy playing games with excellent effects, you can watch movies with really digital effect.

It was working fine for 6mths and then came the frustration, disappointment for me.

Frustration & Disappointment

I wanted to upgrade my system because it was becoming too slow to surf on the Internet and some of my application wasn’t running properly with 64mb ram so wanted to add another 64mb of additional ram. I called up the so called HP service centre and I was in for a rude shock because they straightaway told me that would cost me Rs2500 (50$) for the ram and 2500Rs for the service. I told them It was under warranty and I agree with the equipment it is okay, but the service should not be so high, but they straight away refused to reduce the cost of services.

I was no way going to shell out money for the Service so caught hold of a local seller and got my ram added, no doubt I myself could have done it because, I use to do little bit assembling myself but this was huge money and didn’t wanted to take the risk.

Things went on fine after some days, my Win 98 started dancing and I use to see the Dangerous blue screen very often, I thought that some of the applications were giving me problem and went ahead and thought would have Windows 2000. Everything went on fine, again HP failed miserably because they didn’t have the drivers for Sound card and my modem. I checked on to the HP’s website and thought would download these drivers but was in for again a rude shock, HP has mentioned that none of their drivers are tested in Win 2000 and was not possible to get it from somewhere else. So I had to get down to basics and got my win 98 re-installed through the HP recovery cd.

Only good thing about Pavilion or any branded machine is they come with recovery cd which will re-install all your previous application like your OS (operating System). Mcafee Virus Software and the drivers, you can at least work on it. On the recovery cd there are 2 options.

Recover only: This is an option when you don’t want your data to get lost and want just the Operating System, & other pre-loaded software to get recovered.

Format & Recover Here if you want to format your Hard Disk and then recover where in the OS along with the pre-loaded software is re-installed

But what happens when this CD gets damaged, simple throw your machine out of the nearest window, because even if you want to install Win 98 from other CD, the sound and Modem drivers wont be detected. So you cant do anything, you have to call HP service centre pay them a huge sum and get rectified.

This is not the case with only HP but all the branded system Compaq, IBM.

Suggestion:

If you want to go in for a good computer system for you home these are the things you need to take into account.

1. After Sales Service

   
   




2. Warranty Period

   
   




3. Warranty on the Spare Parts

   
   




4. Service Near to your locality.

   
   

Why I would prefer assembled machine (This is sheer my opinion)

1. I can get the parts cheap at the dealer and I can test it before I get it installed

   
   




2. Check all your parts before being put at the system

   
   




3. Good choice of parts.

   
   

This is what I prefer

Cabinet: Check with your local dealers, because they have come up with nice designer cabinets

So be smart again and don’t fall for the flashy advertisements by these branded companies who don’t have anything big to offer but just great looks.