HP Pavilion Media Center

Alright so today we'll go right ahead and review the notably superb statistics of the HP Pavilion Media Center. I'm sure you'll yearn for it. Honestly now you'll likely yearn for it. As normal, we make an effort to discover and also show the finest finds attainable anyplace on the net directly after the statistics.

The Following Review By: Luther Carr

If you want to turn your den, home office, or dorm room into a home theater without making the move to an A/V-style form factor, the HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360n offers the same media-friendly features we saw in the previous model, the HP Media Center m7260n Photosmart PC; however, it adds a shiny Intel Viiv sticker on the front.

Even though we like many of the proprietary features on the $1,150 (after $50 mail-in rebate) m7360n, including a LightScribe DVD burner and a slot for HP's Personal Media Drive, the value of the Viiv branding is dubious. Less a new technology than a convenient branding of familiar parts, a Viiv system is supposed to be optimized for multimedia use. The Viiv spec mandates the Windows Media Center Edition operating system, 5.1 or 7.1 audio, and Intel's Quick Resume instant on/off technology.

An Intel dual-core CPU--in this case a Pentium D 920--is also part of the spec, and it's one of the more useful requirements of Viiv. Other things we think you need for a great entertainment PC, such as a TV tuner (which is included) and a decent video card (which isn't) are not part of the Viiv requirement, so just looking for the Viiv sticker may not be enough for your needs. We also wish the m7360n had more room for expansion. Like the m7260n before it, the m7360n is a preconfigured system sold without a monitor or speakers, so you'll have to make sure it includes the components you want.

A better idea might be to build your own custom version of the machine on HP's Web site. The customizable version is called the HP Pavilion Media Center TV m7360y. The two-tone silver tower has a nine-in-one media reader built into the front face. The reader's position above the DVD drives makes it easy to access even when the system is on the floor. Two vertical front doors conceal an HP Personal Media Drive Bay on the left side and FireWire, S-Video, and composite-video inputs and dual USB 2.0 ports on the right.