HP Compaq Business Desktop D325

WHAT'S HOT: HP's D325 is available in either a handsome black-and-silver "slim tower" or a "microtower" chassis; we looked at the latter, which is larger and has twice as many drive bays. Despite its smaller-than-average minitower case, the D325 Microtower can grow along with your business. It has three open PCI slots, three available drive bays (one internal 3.5-inch bay; two externally accessible 5.25-inch bays), plus an additional slot for 256MB of extra memory.

Our test system had built-in support for two standard VGA inputs, so you can run two displays simultaneously--a nice extra if, say, you like to monitor e-mail and work on a spreadsheet without toggling between screens. In our graphics tests, the system's NVidia GeForce4 chip set earned fantastic frame rates--some of the highest we've recorded for integrated graphics.

Like other HP minitowers, the D325's chassis requires no tools for servicing and upgrading the system. After removing the side panel, you simply depress metal tabs located on the side of the case, which help you snap off the front panel. You have front and side access to drive bay cages with side tabs that lock drives in place. Once the tabs are lifted up, optical and hard drives slip easily out of the bays.

WHAT'S NOT: Our test configuration came with one optical drive--a 48X CD-ROM, which means backups can be done only to 1.44MB floppies or some type of external drives. Adding an internal CD-RW drive to the system at ordering time costs an extra $69. While a DVD-ROM isn't a necessity for everyday computing tasks, most office systems have one. That upgrade costs $49.

The 40GB hard drive is big enough to hold one person's office work, but space-eating file types like video would fill it up very quickly.

WHAT ELSE: With a 2.13-GHz Athlon XP 2600+ CPU and 256MB of DDR333 memory, the D325 clocked a score of 122 on PC WorldBench 4. We've tested another machine with this configuration--the Polywell Poly 880NF2-2600; it performed a few points faster, but it's an insignificant difference that should be unnoticeable to most users.

The included HP L1502 15-inch LCD handled our graphics quality tests better it did text. Colors appeared evenly saturated in a photo, but in our newsletter and on screens with multisized type, small fonts looked less sharp than we've seen on similar panels.

For enhanced security, the six USB 2.0 ports can be disabled to prevent employees from copying sensitive data to external storage devices like a USB flash memory drive. Two of the ports, along with inputs for a headphone and microphone, are conveniently located midway up the front of the case. Four more USB 2.0 ports are on the back.

The system's software bundle consists of Microsoft Works 7.0, which lacks a full spreadsheet or database, and is more suitable for home than business use. For managing large numbers of these systems as part of a network, HP provides free, downloadable IT management software.

The black-and-silver keyboard (matching the D325's chassis) has eight hot-keys, all of which can be reconfigured to launch different applications. Typing felt smooth, although we thought the space bar was too thin for big-thumbed typists.

HP's CD-based documentation is chock full of troubleshooting information and directions on modifying default settings; it also includes a separate hardware reference guide for upgrades.

UPSHOT: The HP Business D325 Microtower has some unusual features, and it's a fine choice for small to midsize businesses looking for an inexpensive, upgradable system.

SUMMARY

HP Business Desktop D325 Microtower $