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By Rory Reid, CNET.co.uk
Dec 25, 2007

Laptops may be outselling desktops by a factor of five, but that hasn't stopped HP ploughing ahead with yet another family-friendly PC.

The Pavilion Elite m9000 series is designed to be a good all-rounder, delivering "outstanding entertainment and top performance" to all and sundry. The HP Pavilion Elite m9000 series desktop PC is available in two bundles--with the 19-inch HP w1907 widescreen monitor for S$2,299 (US$1,512.50) or the 22-inch HP w2207 Wide LCD monitor for S$2,899 (US$1,907.24).

Editors' note : This review is based on tests done by our sister site CNET.com.uk. As such, please note that there may be slight differences in the testing procedure and ratings system. For more information on the actual tests conducted on the product, please inquire directly at the site where the article was originally published. References made to some of other products in this review may not be available or applicable in Asia. Please check directly with your local distributor for details.

Design

Not much forethought has gone into the basic shape of the m9000 series--it looks like every other PC that came before it. Get a little closer though, and you'll likely be swayed by the modern piano black finish and the abundance of extra bits, bobs and flapdoodles to fiddle with.

The most interesting additions include the top-mounted power button. This is far easier to reach than front-facing switches, particularly when the PC lives under a desk. The top of the chassis is rubberized to make it less slippery, so external hard drives and cups of coffee don't accidentally slide off. There's even a flip-up panel that keeps USB cables tidy on their way to the four rear-facing USB ports.

The front panel of the m9000 has a few clever tricks, too. Firstly the 15-in-1 memory card reader sits near the top, making it easy to access without getting on your hands and knees. Then all flap hell breaks loose: There's a flap concealing the optical drive, a flap concealing the USB and front-facing audio ports, and flaps for hiding 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HP removable Media Drives. Finally, there's an HP Backup button, which launches software for making copies of your most precious files. Thankfully, that's not protected by a flap.

Features

As is usual for PCs, the m9000 series is available in a couple of configurations. Our review unit came with a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 CPU, 3GB of RAM and a midrange Nvidia GeForce GT graphics card.

Overall, it's a well-balanced specification but there are a couple of oddities. Firstly, HP provided 3GB of RAM, not 2GB or 4GB as is more common. This is supplied across two 1GB DIMMs and two 512MB DIMMs, so all four memory slots on the Intel G33 express-based motherboard are occupied. Upgrading memory in the future will involve throwing some of the existing RAM in the dustbin.

The next oddity is in the configuration of the hard and optical drives across the two available configurations. One SKU comes with a 320GB hard drive and an HD-DVD drive for playing back high definition-movies. The next configuration, on the other hand, comes with 1TB of storage--across two 500GB hard drives--but lacks HD-DVD capability. Instead you have to settle for an ordinary dual-layer DVD rewriter. Perhaps HP thinks fans of large hard drives will steal all their movies from the Internet, whereas those with smaller disks will pay for HD-DVDs.

Whatever the case, both machines are compatible with HP's Media Drives. These USB-powered backup disks come in two flavors--a small 120GB model or a larger 320GB model. These slide into dedicated ports at the front of the PC but can be connected to non-HP machines via a USB cable. Happily, HP supplies a 320GB Personal Media Drive in the box for our unit.

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