Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Pavilion a350n Desktop PC (2.80-GHz Pentium 4 (Hyper-Threading), 512 MB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, DVD+RW/CD-RW Combo Drive)

This is a solid machine. Nicely built, and easy to remove the panel to upgrade. The Ram and processor are eminently upgradable for future consideration.
This machine is *Very* fast, has a large disk and enough ports, firewire, ethernet etc. to satisify most anyone.
BTW, I am an engineer who knows and designs hardware.
The down side?
1. It looks like a 1940's toaster. Hmm, maybe thats good...
2. The bundled software is full of trials and even annoying reminders (advertising) that I will soon strip out.
3. The memory is 512MB of DDR333. Not bad, but could be a little better.
I removed it and replaced it with 4 512MB modules (2GB)of DDR400. Already faster than blazes with the DDR333, the new memory moves yet faster; I would say my apps now move 25 to 40 percent faster with this.
Upside:
The 250 watt rated power supply in this unit is enough for most anything; most people, even technical support folks don't understand this.
The processor uses about 35 watts; each drive less than 25 watts, the sound card less than 15 watts and add on cards less than 20 watts each.
So everything uses less than 130 watts for real.
Even with that fancy $500 video card which warns you to use a 300 watt supply, there is overhead. That card draws a max of 50 watts more for a grand total of 180 watts.
Another thing; I cannot stand computer noise and this unit is very, very quiet. Nice!
Also, there is more software inside than the package indicates: Take a look.
For $800 or so a great deal. Even some $1500 units are not this good.
Then again, I like the doggie search character, so that shows what my opinion is worth.
Cheers!

I finally wore out my old HP computer and found this beauty to replace it. The a350n exceeds all of the capability of my old unit with the upgrades I've installed over the years for a fraction of the price. And there's more. This computer is whisper quiet and better ventilated than any I've seen. You may not think about how much noise your PC makes until you hear this one. HP has shrunk its tower cases yet still leaves you with working room if you want to add something. The set-up process is better documented and requires less user involvement than ever before and- shocker here- the a350n comes with a detailed printed manual. There is lots of software included. I spent some time dumping most of it, but there were things I kept too, so the variety of offerings is designed to please a wide spectrum of users. This is my 6th PC dating back to a 486 unit. Each has been from a different manufacturer until now. My old HP survived everything I stuffed into it over the years and worked well through two OS changes and two BIOS changes. That is why I looked at HP again and when I found the a350n with everything I needed at this incredible price, I couldn't pass it up.

I hate the idea that I had to return this system twice before finding one that worked or me. Both of the first two did not see the DVD and after hours on the phone was finally told to return the PC. But the third was a charm and it works fine. The media ports (2 USB 1 Firewire) and headphone speaker access on the face are very user friendly and the hardware package overall is aboce par. Access to the inside of the PC is simple and everything is at your fingertips. So installing new Ram and a Video card for gaming was a breeze. The only complaint is the onboard audio card. I would have had second thoughts if it had been brought up before the purchase. But the marked down price and rebate made this an easy decision for me.

Overall it's been a great computer very few problems and as I already noted the hardware package is pretty good. I would like to have had a better software package but the cost of the Hardware made it cheaper to purchase the A350n than build a new PC that would have been close to the same performance without the software.

I got this PC two weeks ago and I must say this is a great desktop. It has almost everything an intermediate PC user wants: it is fast( P4 HT @ 2.8 GHz), lots of hard disk space(160 GB, good if you want to edit videos), 512 MB of RAM, USB and IEEE 1394 ports(to connect to digital camcorders), CD and DVD burner, etc, etc. The HD makes some noise, but the performance of this desktop as a whole is fantastic. The absence of recovery CDs, used when you need to format the HD, is not a source of problems at all, once you can create the CDs set very easily(there is even an application for that included among the provided softwares), as long as you do not make a mess of the HP Recovery Drive. It is an excellent HP product. I really recommend it. Congratulations to HP.

I just bought my HP Pavilion a350n an after-Christmas sale. I had bought my wife an HP Pavilion PC with a Celeron but I wanted a more powerful unit for myself. I currently do database and software development work as a consultant. The store gave me an excellent deal on the two PCs - for buying multiple PCs.

We have had very good experience with HP's. In 1998, we purchased an HP Pavilion with a P-II/400. In June 2000, we bought an HP OmniBook laptop with a P-II/400. Both are still running today - and are fully functional PCs. A little slow but they are operating.

I did a comparison of PCs and decided I'd get an HP Pavilion a350n. I compared it to many $1,000-PCs (including Sony 420) and decided the HP Pavilion a350n was the one I'd get. My previous positive experience with HP was a factor.

The HP Pavilion a350n is a fabulous computer for home or home/office. It is reliable, well-equipped, and F-A-S-T! Set-up ran flawlessly. The PC is quiet - very quiet. Software included is very good. Graphics are excellent. It is an excellent value for the dollars invested.

One thing - I explored the 160-GB HD and found extra preloaded software that was not advertised. The HD, after setup, had 130-GB free. HP uses about 8-GB of the 160-GB HD for its recovery partition. The other 22-GB was pre-loaded software - much of it I have not loaded. I explored the pre-loaded folders and found several software titles not advertised that was pre-loaded that I was going to buy. A nice addition from HP.

One piece of advice: After two days, the PC began failing to shutdown a video driver application on shutdown. I went to HP's website and saw they had an update that had been loaded and installed during the setup process. I went to NVIDA's website and saw they (NVIDIA) had a more recent update dated mid-December 2003. I downloaded & installed the updated drivers and the problem went away. I recommend getting the updated video drivers directly from NVIDIA's website. The drivers seem to have fixed the minor problem I was encountering. I consider this a "little inconvenience" and not major - taking maybe 20-minutes time to correct.

I feel, overall, the HP Pavilion a350n is an excellent value. Thank you HP.