| HP Compaq Presario SR5610F |
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Today's desktop prices have come way down and if you're in the market for a new PC that won't cost you a whole lot (sub $500), then you'll want to take a look at the HP Compaq Presario SR5610F. If you don't need a powerhouse computer and just want to have a basic computer for daily computing tasks, such as Web browsing, e-mailing, and document composure, the Compaq Presario SR5601F would make a perfect PC for a college student, younger children, or the grandparents. The Presario SF5610F's tower is pretty basic looking, but it looks sleek at the same time as well. The whole tower body is covered in a silver finish and a black-colored plastic area where the components on the front-panel are located. At the top of the front panel, there's a dual-layer DVD drive and at the bottom of the tower, there are two USB 2.0 ports and a few audio jacks, including headphones and microphone. Unfortunately, there isn't a media card reader built-in on this computer as there is on many other computers of equal or higher value. Some of the other key features of the HP Compaq Presario SR5610F include a 2.5GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ processor, 3GB of RAM, 128MB (shared) GeForce 6150SE integrated graphics, a 320GB (7,200 RPM) hard drive, Windows Vista Home Premium w/ SP1, and the dual-layer DVD drive as mentioned earlier. We liked that it comes with Vista Home Premium instead of Home Basic because you get the included Windows Media Center functionality built right into the operating system. To go into a little detail on the hardware, the 2.5GHz Athlon processor is perfect for everyday computing tasks and the 3GB of RAM is more than enough and the 320GB is suitable for a system of this price and will allow you to install many applications and have room left over for photos and videos as well. The dual-layer DVD±RW drive will allow you to burn large files to DVD and play movies as well. There are no available SATA ports on the motherboard (the two are already in use by the hard drive and DVD drive), but there is a spare IDE port for a second hard drive. There are also two free PCI slots for expansion cards and a free PCIe (x16) slot for adding a more powerful graphics card for 3D gaming in the future. Unfortunately, the HP Compaq Presario SR5610F is loaded with "bloatware" when you first get it, which is very common with other computers today as well. Bloatware consists of all those free trials and free software that comes pre-loaded by the computer manufacturer. Some of the ones on this system include a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office Home & Student, a few Internet software trials, and a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2008. In order to free up space on your computer when you get it, we suggest you go through the add/remove programs feature in the control panel in Vista and remove all of the software that you don't intend on using because it's just wasted space. The system comes with HP's Total Care Advisor, which is a software program that gives you related information to your system, such as support issues and software updates. HP also includes 24/7 phone and online support for one-year with an option to upgrade your warranty for two or three additional years. Overall, the performance of the HP Compaq Presario SR5610F is quite comparable to similar systems and would definitely consider this computer as a second-computer in the home, or for a college student or grandparents. It's a great system if you don't want to spend a lot of money and get a pretty good system that is reliable and useful at the same time. |
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