COMPUTERS & LAPTOPS  

HP Pavilion Elite m9040n PC



At some point, you'll find that your old desktop PC is just too damn slow to handle multimedia tasks effectively. (Hint: When you're resizing pictures, ripping MP3s, or transcoding videos from you camcorder for uploading to YouTube, you'll become much better acquainted with that dreaded hourglass than you'd ever hoped to be.) If you've already reached that stage, the HP Pavilion Elite m9040n ($1,190 direct without monitor) may be the system for you. It's HP's next-generation multimedia desktop PC, and you can get it without going into hock.

The m9040n is set to supplant the m8100y as the high-end multimedia desktop in HP's Pavilion lineup. It packs a similar processor and even more multimedia features than its predecessor. The m9040n has the usual media-friendly attributes: an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 quad-core processor, 3GB of system memory, about 640GB of hard drive space split between twin 320GB hard drives in a RAID 0 array, an over-the-air ATSC (HDTV) tuner (a CableCARD tuner is an option), wireless networking, a digital media card reader, and virtually every port you can think of that will let you hook up a camera, camcorder, MP3 player, or VCR. Smooth doors swing forward to cover these ports and keep the front panel looking clean and neat when they're not in use.

The interior of the case is unfriendly to upgrades. Wires snake throughout the case, and the cage for one of the removable drives obstructs the memory slots. You can remove the cage, but upgrading this system would still be inconvenient. Good thing just about everything you need is already in the system's chassis. The m9040n even has an integrated IR sensor (USB dongles for the MCE remote are one of my pet peeves), but this forward-looking desktop also includes an IR blaster so that you can still control an external cable box if you need to. Last but not least, the top panel on the m9040n is worth special attention: It has a rubberized surface to hold your personal electronics, such as an iPod or digital camera, and cable management near the back to keep USB cables for these products where you expect them to be. Neat stuff.

Although there is no extra room inside the case itself, the m9040n is one of the most expandable desktops I've seen as far as hard drives are concerned. There's an Easy Backup button on the front panel, which is like having a Maxtor OneTouch backup hard drive built into your desktop. Hitting the button brings up a wizard that helps both novice and expert backup artists set the m9040n to back up manually, or as a scheduled automatic backup to either the Personal or Pocket Media Drive (this also works with a third-party external hard drive hooked up via USB). The same button can be used to invoke a restore command that gets your files back if you accidentally erase them. The Easy Backup button also works with internal drives, both of HP's Media Drives, network drives, or external USB or FireWire drives.

The m9040n has a pair of bays for hard drives, namely the Personal Media Drive (desktop class) and the Pocket Media Drive (notebook class), both of which you must purchase separately. (Gateway also offers a similar feature on some of its desktops.) While I like both of these drive formats (which are meant for either extra drive space or backup), I can only hope that the novice user doesn't get confused and buys neither. HP obviously included both formats to reward users who have bought both in the past. This strategy also preempts the inevitable tech-support question that comes from buying the wrong drive cartridges, since you can use either type! Why bother? Well, think about the reaction you'd get if you were to "lose" the video of your child taking her first steps. The Backup button (or any backup method, for that matter) will save your behind. The combination of one of the Media Drives and the Backup button makes the 9040n one of the best setups for the multimedia user.

HP still loads a bunch of bloatware on the m9040n, including the Wild Tangent games, AOL , EarthLink, the trial Office package, and Rhapsody. My take is that if you really wanted all these "free' programs, you'd download them yourself. While many people may want AOL or Office, those who don't will have to uninstall them, and even the best uninstall programs tend to leave detritus all over your hard drive. And like most HP desktops, the m9040n has a paltry 60-day subscription to Norton Internet Security. Dell XPS desktops come with 15 months of protection, and Velocity Micro desktops include a year.

On our tests, the m9040n performs like any other quad-core multimedia system, which is to say it's excellent. The quad-core-equipped m9040n took 1 minute flat to complete our Windows Media Encoder test—significantly faster than dual-core mainstream desktops, which take a minute and a half, and blazingly fast compared with budget PCs, which can take up to 3 minutes. The m9040n likewise finished the Photoshop CS2 test in 42 seconds, faster than all the multimedia systems in our latest PC roundup except for the overclocked Velocity Micro Promagix (8800 GTS SLI). By contrast, value systems can take up to 5 minutes to get through this test. The m9040n finished our new Adobe Photoshop CS3 test in a scorching 29 seconds.

The m9040n's direct competition is the Gateway DX440X and, to a certain extent, the HP Pavilion m8100y. The m9040n blows both away in terms of features, including the dual Media Drive bays. The m9040n is about the same price as the DX440X ($1,108 direct) and is cheaper than the m8100y ($2,199), largely due to the m8100y's $600 HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive. I prefer HP's Media Drives over the one in the DX440X, since the Gateway drive uses a proprietary cable, whereas the HP drives use standard USB cables. The m8100y is a better machine for the serious video geek, but the m9040n is a superb machine for users with (slightly) more mainstream needs.

As a solid, sub-$1,200 multimedia PC, the HP Pavilion Elite m9040n PC lives up to its Elite moniker. I would like to see a HD-DVD/Blu-ray option in the future (though that would raise the price significantly, of course) and a vast reduction in bloatware. For now, though, the m9040n is the desktop I'm going to recommend to friends who want a multimedia base station.