Off to a speedy start with the Pavilion 9850

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Do we really need a machine faster than a Pentium III running at 600 MHz? Time and time again we have asked ourselves this same question.

And time and time again we have come up with the same answer: for most of the jobs that we do, we probably do not need a blazing PC with speeds exceeding 600 MHz.

However, reality leaves us with very little choice. Intel has been aggressively pushing its new Pentium 4 processor, so aggressively that you will have some difficulty finding the old Pentium III processors in the market -- unless you are looking for used ones. If you have been thinking of buying a new PC that you want to use for the next three years, the chances are you will have to go with the Pentium 4.

As I wrote last week, I was quite lucky to get a taste of the new generation of Intel Pentium processor, courtesy of Hewlett- Packard and Istidata, one of HP's main dealers in Indonesia. I was able to test drive one of HP's popular home PCs, Pavilion 9850.

This fast machine, which still wowed me even though I had been using a speedy Pentium III 900 MHz, ran on a Pentium 4 with a clock speed of 1.3 GHz. Of course, we do not expect to see a 50 percent performance improvement with an additional 50 percent clock speed, though.

The hard disk on the machine was an Ultra-DMA Quantum Fireball with a total capacity of 30 GB. One CD-RW and one DVD-ROM complemented the entire system, so we could copy directly from CD to CD without any problem. Unfortunately, I have no DVD in my collection yet, so I could not test this feature out. The system did not come with an LS 120 drive, however, but with a plain 3.5- inch floppy diskette drive.

Obviously, with home networking and broadband Internet access in mind, HP has made a 10/100 Ethernet network adapter a standard feature in the Pavilion. Besides, a 56 Kbps V.90 modem was also included.

The keyboard uses the USB port, and so did the mouse. The keyboard had two USB ports as well, so you can connect the mouse directly to it and do not have to use the one on the CPU. The keyboard had a lot of buttons that were neatly arranged on top of the keypad. There were buttons for telling the PC to go to sleep, to access Help, to print, to connect to the Internet, and to control the multimedia player such as play, pause, fast forward and eject. A large audio volume control knob was available on the far right.

For technical people, one of the more important things is perhaps the memory specification. The system came with 128 MB of Rambus DRAM, usually written as RDRAM. This is the newer type of DRAM than the SDRAM, and it provides the speed necessary to support the faster processor. RDRAM is still very expensive, and this machine was already using it.

I went to pick up this machine from Istidata by cab, so I did not bother to take home the 17-inch monitor that this US$1,799 beauty is supposed to come with (I had a very good 17-inch Siemens Nixdorf monitor at home that I could use for the test drive).

Incidentally, HP's 17-inch monitor made headlines in the United States recently because it gave users who touched some of the parts an electric shock. HP has recalled all the affected monitors, none of which were distributed here in Indonesia anyway.

The video subsystem was nVidia's GeForce2 with 32 MB of RAM. That should be more than enough to satisfy the need of hard-core gamers.

Results

I should admit that my daughter and I had a great time playing the PC games that came with the Intel PC Camera, which we also installed on this machine. Unfortunately I did not have the chance to run more complicated software applications on it, but I guess with so much power under the hood there would not be much that this Pavilion cannot do.

The Windows Me that was installed on this PC did not give me any problems at all. When I tried to connect an HP ScanJet 5000 to the parallel port, however, the system asked me whether I wanted to add support for a PS/2 keyboard and mouse. I responded by clicking on Yes, and that turned out to be a mistake. Right after that the USB keyboard and mouse were completely disabled.

I then had to connect a PS/2 mouse and keyboard to the system (the ports were still available) for the input device. I struggled for some time to return control to the USB keyboard and mouse. I had no luck. Then I remembered seeing a roll-back tool somewhere in the system menu. I found System Restore under Accessories and System Tools. I used it to restore the system to a previously recorded system state, and it got the USB keyboard and mouse working again.

The System Restore is a very useful new feature in Windows Me, but you must record the current state before creating changes, such as installing a new software program.

This machine's CPU box also had a door in front that concealed two USB ports as well as an extra serial port. If you have a digital camera, you will appreciate being able to connect it to the system using the ports in front instead of the ones in the rear.

The Pavilion 9850 was really a joy to use and to play around with. There was so much for me to learn, especially as it came with Windows Me. The only thing that I did not like much was the feel of the keyboard. It is a bit spongy, and the sound of the spring inside the Backspace button was especially noticeable. The design is very attractive, on the other hand, with glowing rings surrounding each of its Internet buttons.

Like all the other Pavilions, the speakers were made by Polk Audio. You will probably want to use a better pair of powered speakers if you really want to enjoy watching DVD or audio music on this machine. I like the mouse with the scrolling button, though; it really makes scrolling very easy.

Regardless of the keyboard and the speakers, if you need a powerful home PC and your budget allows, you should seriously consider this machine. It already has what you need and probably want: CD-Writer, a DVD-player, a network interface card (NIC) and four USB ports.(zatni@cbn.net.id)