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HP Media Center m7260n Photosmart PC

77

Good

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Pros
Media Center with video options galore
Cons
Lacks good graphics and upgrade path

Performance: Very Good: 84
Features: Very Good: 82
Design: Very Good: 86

Find out how these scores, and their relative weights, combine to produce the PC World Rating.

Performance
ACD Systems ACDSee	611
Adobe Photoshop	396
Adobe Premiere	513
Ahead Nero	495
Discreet 3ds Max DirectX	340
Discreet 3ds Max OpenGL	446
Microsoft Office XP	575
Mozilla	567
Multitasking	663
Musicmatch Jukebox	550
Overall Graphics Score	Fair
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	77
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	50
Return to Castle Wolfenstein, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit	31
Roxio VideoWave	279
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 16-Bit	141
Unreal Tournament, 1024 by 768, 32-Bit	82
Unreal Tournament, 1280 by 1024, 32-Bit	51
Windows Media Encoder	341
WinZip	418
World Bench 5 Score	88
World Bench 5 Word Score	Very Good

What You Should Know about the Media Center m7260n Photosmart PC

A PC With Little Included RAM Can Do Light Work

This system offers less than 1GB of memory, which is the bare minimum that any full-featured new computer should include. Whether this amount of RAM is optimal for you depends on the PC's operating system: Windows Vista and Apple's Mac OS X don't run well with less than 1GB, Windows XP is fine with 512MB and not too bad with 384MB, and Windows 98 is good with 256MB. Depending on the distribution, Linux can run with as little as 128MB, but most Linux users are better off with at least 512MB--and 1GB is better.

The more installed memory your PC has, the more applications you can run smoothly at once, and the better the system will perform. Upgrading memory in a desktop after you purchase the PC is a snap, but usually it's worthwhile to buy the amount of memory you want preinstalled with the system.