Last Updated
May 25, 2010

Editor's Rating

• Attractive design
• Good performance

• No touch screen
• No HDMI-out, eSATA, FireWire
• Integrated graphics

This all-in-one desktop PC from Hewlett-Packard offers a vibrant 21.5-inch LCD, a 500GB hard drive, and a massive 4GB of RAM, which is a lot for an all-in-one. There's also a few multimedia features bundled with solid performance that make this model one to look at and envy, but it's not without its flaws.

The all-in-one desktop PC category has been slowly growing, but more recently becoming more popular due to Windows 7's touch screen and multimedia support. However, this HP All-in-One 200 doesn't have a touch screen, which is quite odd since these type of computers traditionally do have them. It makes sense that they would as many are used in central locations in the family home, such as the kitchen counter, where a touch screen would make interaction quick and easy while on the go. While lacking touch input, the 21.5-inch LED backlit display does display a vivid picture full of color detail and sharpness. We also like that it has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080, which means it can display 1080p high-definition content with no issues at all. The screen is viewable from any angle and has absolutely no light glare from standard lighting in a home setting.

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Inside HP has placed an Intel Pentium E5400 CPU that runs at 2.7GHz with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, which is a fairly large amount for this type of PC. It also has a 500GB hard drive, which leaves you plenty of room for software and multimedia. We are disappointed to say that this PC has Intel GMA x4500HD integrated graphics and not discrete, meaning that it sucks a lot of power from the CPU and RAM and as a result, playing any 3D intense modern games is out of the question. Pre-installed is a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. Included in the package is a wireless keyboard and mouse and are pretty basic themselves, but definitely usable. The keyboard does have multimedia control buttons to aid in the playback of content.

In terms of connections and inputs, you get a pretty basic set, which includes 7 USB 2.0 ports (2 are on the left side of the PC), a multiformat media card reader (also on the left side), and a multiformat DVD burner with LightScribe on-disc labeling (on the right side next to the brightness controls). There's also integrated wireless connectivity (802.11b/g/n) and Ethernet 10/100/1000. Missing are FireWire, eSATA ports, and even an HDMI output, which really is a disappointment. There is 7.1-Dolby Surround Sound support, so you can connect it to a compatible home theater system if you should desire. There is also an integrated speaker bar that provides just basic, but usable, sound.

Also integrated are a webcam and microphone, but they are both of somewhat poor quality. The webcam delivers grainy picture even in adequately lit settings and the microphone is extremely sensitive.

With regard to performance, this PC performs extremely well with day-to-day tasks as well as multimedia content playback. No issues were noticed with DVD playback, both in audio and video aspects.

We should also mention that as with all other HP computers, this one comes loaded with a lot of trial and bloatware. Most prominent is Norton Internet Security 2010 (60 day trial), Microsoft Works 9.0, and several advertisements and HP-custom software.

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