The budget level desktops are selling as good as any price range especially with the economy’s current down swing. With the off season of computer buying approaching we can look at the budget PC as one of the best buys because they’ll drop to rock bottom prices. In this review I take a look at one the better selling budget PC’s from the consumer favorite Compaq. The SR5250NX is a great entry level Presario and I’ll let you know what you can expect from it and who should go out and pick one up.
Hardware:
Processor: 1.60 GHz Intel Pentium E2140 dual-core
Storage Space: 320 GB hard drive
RAM: 1 GB (Expandable to a 4 GB maximum)
Optical Drive: A CD R/RW with integrated dual-layer DVD +/- R RW burner
Graphics Accelerator: Intel GMA 950 (with 64MB of dedicated Video Ram)
Operating system: Windows Vista Home Premium
What’s in the box: 1 corded keyboard, and a corded mouse
This little economy Compaq has little in way of bells and whistles. The processor is a bit weak for a desktop in my opinion. I wouldn’t mind seeing something this powerful on a notebook but it isn’t very capable on this desktop. The second major flaw is the fact that it only comes with 1GB of RAM. Vista needs at least 2 if you want to run things smoothly. When you combine that with the weak processor you really see a lot of lag in this SR5250NX.
The graphics card is an integrated card that has a little of it’s own dedicated RAM but not enough. Don’t expect to do much in the way of playing graphically intensive games on this Compaq, and this certainly isn’t a very good candidate for video editing.
Connectivity:
Integrated modem
1 Ethernet port (for connecting to wired LAN’s)
6 2.0 USB ports (to be used to connect to a wide variety of peripherals like digital cameras, iPod’s, and printers)
2 PS/2 ports (old school peripheral connections for mice and keyboards)
1 VGA port (a typical monitor port)
1 mic in / 1 audio out
15 in 1 memory media card (use this to directly insert your solid state memory from your portable devices)
The connectivity is average and everything I would like to see is accounted for. I like the placement of the front USB and headphone jacks; it makes it convenient especially for flash drives. I see this Compaq maybe going into the office or class room setting. Basically somewhere the user won’t be needing much in way of multitasking or graphically intensive tasks. It probably wouldn’t be the best option for a college student going off to school despite its attractive price tag unless you’re sure that all they’ll be interested in is school work (and if you think that is the case then you’re lying to yourself)
