Rating: 
Summary: Decent hardware & price; Terrible technical support
Review: I bought my first HP a350n 3 weeks ago for $1,000. Decent package of hardware for the price and it worked fine for a week. Contacted HP's online tech support about a trivial problem and they had me perform a system recovery that blasted my downloaded programs to Saturn (after assuring me no programs would be lost). Their technical expert neglected to tell me to disconnect the printer before doing the system recovery which evidently damaged the system. I returned the PC and like either an idiot or masochist, I bought another a350n through Amazon.com/Home Depot due to what seemed like a great price, $796. That a350n ran OK for one day before seizing up and losing Internet connections. HP's telephone tech support had me perform 2 system recoveries, again sending my programs into deep space. Every day since then I have spent numerous hours online with HP's tech center in India which is apparently manned by untrained goat herders or with HP's telephone tech people. The a350n seizes up, loses Internet connections, loses settings, and generates a steady stream of serious error messages. HP's technical instructions are contradictory, nonsensical, bizarre, inaccurate and sometimes make problems worse. HP's technical wizards have not helped me resolve a single problem. I have spent night after night online with HP and it's like something out of the Twilight Zone. They give instructions that are impossible to comply with, contradict each other, fail to respond, and accomplish nothing (while telling you what a "valuable customer" you are). I bought an HP based on horror stories I read about Dell's tech support center in India, never imagining HP's online center was also manned by lackwits in India. HP's telephone tech support is no bettter. They castigated me for downloading Windows XP updates from Microsoft which both Microsoft and other HP tech reps said the a350n needed. They complained I am running too many programs while I ran as many on an old Emachines PC with only a 400 Mhz Celeron and 32 MB of RAM. The a350n has a 2.8 Ghz Pentium 4 with 512 MB of RAM yet I have had far more problems with it in 3 weeks than with my old Emachines relic in 3 years. If you get an a350n that works, great. But if you need competent technical help, forget HP. Now I understand why Home Depot was selling them for only $796.
Rating: 
Summary: Great product by HP.
Review: I decided to buy a new computer after having my old HP computer for six years, without a problem to speak of. HP has always been very helpful with any questions I have had. So far I am very impressed with my A350N. There have been no problems, and the computer is super fast. I love it, and I know, I made the best choice to buy another HP product.
Rating:
Summary: Impressive!
Review: I finally wore out my old HP computer and found this beauty to replace it. The a350n exceeds all of the capability of my old unit with the upgrades I've installed over the years for a fraction of the price. And there's more. This computer is whisper quiet and better ventilated than any I've seen. You may not think about how much noise your PC makes until you hear this one. HP has shrunk its tower cases yet still leaves you with working room if you want to add something. The set-up process is better documented and requires less user involvement than ever before and- shocker here- the a350n comes with a detailed printed manual. There is lots of software included. I spent some time dumping most of it, but there were things I kept too, so the variety of offerings is designed to please a wide spectrum of users. This is my 6th PC dating back to a 486 unit. Each has been from a different manufacturer until now. My old HP survived everything I stuffed into it over the years and worked well through two OS changes and two BIOS changes. That is why I looked at HP again and when I found the a350n with everything I needed at this incredible price, I couldn't pass it up.
Rating:
Summary: A great home PC
Review: I got this PC two weeks ago and I must say this is a great desktop. It has almost everything an intermediate PC user wants: it is fast( P4 HT @ 2.8 GHz), lots of hard disk space(160 GB, good if you want to edit videos), 512 MB of RAM, USB and IEEE 1394 ports(to connect to digital camcorders), CD and DVD burner, etc, etc. The HD makes some noise, but the performance of this desktop as a whole is fantastic. The absence of recovery CDs, used when you need to format the HD, is not a source of problems at all, once you can create the CDs set very easily(there is even an application for that included among the provided softwares), as long as you do not make a mess of the HP Recovery Drive. It is an excellent HP product. I really recommend it. Congratulations to HP.
Rating: 
Summary: Returned the first two befor getting a great PC
Review: I hate the idea that I had to return this system twice before finding one that worked or me. Both of the first two did not see the DVD and after hours on the phone was finally told to return the PC. But the third was a charm and it works fine. The media ports (2 USB 1 Firewire) and headphone speaker access on the face are very user friendly and the hardware package overall is decent. Access to the inside of the PC is simple and everything is at your fingertips. So installing new Ram and a Video card for gaming was a breeze. The only complaint is the onboard audio card. I would have had second thoughts if it had been brought up before the purchase. But the marked down price and rebate made the decision for me. Overall it's been a great computer very few problems and as I already noted the hardware package is decent. I would like to have had a better software package but the cost of the Hardware made it cheaper to purchase the A350n than build a new PC that would have been close to the same performance.
Rating:
Summary: Great PC.
Review: I have had this pc for about a week. Its a great machine. Yes it still has the usual lags like most machines every once in awhile but its better than the other ones I've seen. The only drawback that I see is that the hard drive is very loud. It sounds like its grinding all the time.
Rating:
Summary: Great Product From HP!
Review: I just bought my HP Pavilion a350n an after-Christmas sale. I had bought my wife an HP Pavilion PC with a Celeron but I wanted a more powerful unit for myself. I currently do database and software development work as a consultant. The store gave me an excellent deal on the two PCs - for buying multiple PCs. We have had very good experience with HP's. In 1998, we purchased an HP Pavilion with a P-II/400. In June 2000, we bought an HP OmniBook laptop with a P-II/400. Both are still running today - and are fully functional PCs. A little slow but they are operating. I did a comparison of PCs and decided I'd get an HP Pavilion a350n. I compared it to many $1,000-PCs (including Sony 420) and decided the HP Pavilion a350n was the one I'd get. My previous positive experience with HP was a factor. The HP Pavilion a350n is a fabulous computer for home or home/office. It is reliable, well-equipped, and F-A-S-T! Set-up ran flawlessly. The PC is quiet - very quiet. Software included is very good. Graphics are excellent. It is an excellent value for the dollars invested. One thing - I explored the 160-GB HD and found extra preloaded software that was not advertised. The HD, after setup, had 130-GB free. HP uses about 8-GB of the 160-GB HD for its recovery partition. The other 22-GB was pre-loaded software - much of it I have not loaded. I explored the pre-loaded folders and found several software titles not advertised that was pre-loaded that I was going to buy. A nice addition from HP. One piece of advice: After two days, the PC began failing to shutdown a video driver application on shutdown. I went to HP's website and saw they had an update that had been loaded and installed during the setup process. I went to NVIDA's website and saw they (NVIDIA) had a more recent update dated mid-December 2003. I downloaded & installed the updated drivers and the problem went away. I recommend getting the updated video drivers directly from NVIDIA's website. The drivers seem to have fixed the minor problem I was encountering. I consider this a "little inconvenience" and not major - taking maybe 20-minutes time to correct. I feel, overall, the HP Pavilion a350n is an excellent value. Thank you HP.
Rating: 
Summary: Terrible experience with H-P
Review: I recently purchased this system and wasted many hours, because it failed to work right out of the box. The first system I purchases would start-up and then shut down (powers off) unexpectedly. I returned this one to the store for a replacement and when I got the new one home it had problems too. It displayed error messages indicating that a Windows .dll file was corrupted or missing and it would not start Windows. After calling H-P techical support they sent a "recovery console disk" by FedEx. The techical support person I spoke with was a complete idiot. He tried to make it sound like it was my fault because I did not download the latest S/W updates from H-P's web site and suggested that I should have know to do this immediately, even this was not mentioned in any of the literature that was provided with the system. He even said that it was the same as knowing that you have to put gas in a new car when you buy it!!! Excuse me for thinking that a product is supposed to work when you get it home! When I received the disk I had to call H-P technical support again, because the poorly written instruction did not match what was on the screen. H-P tech support assisted me, but this failed to work. Not only did it not work, it wiped out all the applications and data I had put on the hard drive. They said they would have to send me another "recovery disk". At this point I was too fed up with H-P and returned the A350n to the store where I purchased it (Microcenter, Duluth, GA)for a refund even though I knew that their policy was to charges a 15% re-stocking fee. Fortunately, the manager at the store was very understanding and decided to waive the re-stocking fee - kudos to Microcenter!
I have to say that most of the H-P's Techical support people were very good (except for the one "idiot") and I was able to get a person on the phone without being put on hold for a long time. However, I would be extremely cautious in purchasing a PC from H-P since they seem to have some serious quality control issues. If you feel lucky, buy it from a local store that has a liberal return policy. Good luck!
Rating:
Summary: Way awesome!!
Review: I recently upgraded from HP Pavilion w/ Celeron to HP Pavilion a350n w/P4 Hyper Threading and all I can say is....WOW!! This computer is super fast, and has all the latest features you could ask for. DVD+RW/CD-RW, front access usb ports, good tech specs, etc, etc, etc...In a word it is very "current." I have broadband internet and whoah..this is awesomely fast. I love it and it's my new "baby!" It's my first REAL computer! It is too new for me to have any complaints yet, however, I think I have grown attached enough that I will be able to get over any let downs, if any, pretty easily. Ultimately, I chose this HP Pavilion a350n over the HP M series(media center) and Sony Vaio RS420 due to price, but I don't belive I have sacrificed much more than more expense, ALTHOUGH, I am aware of how much more HP M's offer. I would've been just as satified (if not more),I think, but the HP M's are just too expensive for me, and like all electronics, have a tendency to break down. tacvba@comcast.net
Rating:
Summary: Sounded better then it was
Review: Like the other person, this PC did not work right out of the box. I changed it for another and it also failed to work, but it took a few hours for me to find that out.
I have found it to be very slow, locks up a lot, and stops responding in the middle of your work.
I have also received little to no help from HP, I was told to bring it back again and get a refund and buy it from their online store, WHY? They would not honor their warranty.
I also had a problem when I installed the printer software (HP) the computer tried to install the software everytime I clicked on an icon on the desktop. I tried to do a system recovery, this helped that problem. I then redid all the work I had done before and made a recovery DVD. Only to find that after I did this the DVD drive shut down and I cannot use the drive. I tried to do the system recovery again but it did not restore the dvd drive.
One of the features I went for was the DVD drive. I thought I would give HP another try and switch it out yet AGAIN, to find that again the software was installing itself but this time it was MS Money the software that is already on the PC when you buy it and they dont give you the disc and it would prompt me to insert my disc to either un/install the product. i had a service person look at the problem and told me that I needed to recover the whole system to rid the problem, so again I spent waisted hours re-doing the whole setup process and getting all the software back on the pc. To have the DVD drive go out again.
DONT WAISTE YOUR MONEY FOR THIS OVER PRICED TYPEWRITER!!!!
I say it is a typewriter cause all you can do is type anything else is too much for this pc to handle.
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