HP Compaq Dx5150 Small Form Factor Desktop PC

The dx5150 will also please your IT department, or whoever maintains your PCs. Despite its small size, the system is very easy to open and offers a surprising amount of expandability. The cover comes off with a single thumbscrew. Beneath, you'll find two PCI slots, an open PCI Express x1 slot, and an open PCI Express x16 slot (should you want to add a separate graphics card). All the expansion slots are unobstructed, and all the expansion cards are conveniently secured to the case by a single screw.

The half of the motherboard that holds the RAM is covered by the DVD and hard drives and looks impossibly cramped. But after tugging on a few clearly marked tabs and levers, I easily removed the DVD drive; the assembly that holds it lifts up to fully expose the RAM, the hard drive, and the obscured half of the motherboard. One limitation of the system's size: There's room for only one hard drive. So if you need more than the system's 80GB of storage, you'll have to replace the existing drive.

Another big plus for the maintenance folks is HP's warranty for business machines: three years on parts and labor, and 24-hour on-site service.

Although the dx5150 certainly isn't made for games or heavy graphics use, you have to credit the integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200 graphics with successfully running our graphics gaming tests, albeit at very low frame rates. Our lab reported smooth game play on Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Unreal Tournament, and Star Wars looked pretty good when run from the DVD drive. Photographic images on the 17-inch HP 1740 flat-panel display looked sharp and rich in color, but the smallest fonts were a bit hard to read. The integrated speakers provided rudimentary audio capability; however, anyone planning to regularly listen to, well, anything should invest in external speakers.

The dx5150 comes with both DVI and VGA ports--not something you often see with integrated graphics--so you get more flexibility in choosing a monitor. Two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone jack, and a microphone jack are on the front of case, and six USB 2.0 ports and an ethernet port are on the back along with the usual assortment of audio connectors, and a parallel and a serial port. The system comes with a basic, no-frills keyboard that feels well made and has firm key action.

Upshot: The dx5150 Business Desktop isn't a home-oriented, high-performance system. But this well-designed office PC takes up minimal space and can easily be upgraded to extend its useful life.

Kirk Steers