At a Glance

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

By Sean CaptainHP Pavilion 7965HP’s Pavilion 7965 is a small package that puts a lot of handy tools at your fingertips. The front of the gray, metal midsize tower case features a translucent blue accent panel that covers the externally accessible drives. Pressing clearly labeled buttons for the DVD-ROM and CD-RW drives opens protective panels and allows the drives’ trays to reel out. The blue accent panel wraps over the top of the system, where it covers a compartment for storing CD and DVD discs. At the bottom front of the case, a door lifts up to reveal a serial port, an IEEE 1394 (FireWire) port, and two USB ports, so you can attach many different peripherals, including cameras, handheld PCs, external hard drives, and other devices. An additional serial port, two more IEEE 1394 ports, and two more USB ports are located on the back of the system, along with an ethernet port and a V.92 modem (which, if your ISP supports it, allows faster upstream speeds than a more-common V.90 modem does).While the 17-inch HP MX70 monitor displayed text pretty well, it foundered badly with images. Our photograph of a group of children appeared faded; the colors of the children’s clothing were off, and botched flesh tones made some of the kids look sickly. Images also looked dreary in our screening of the Gladiator DVD.

Our DVD movie and CD audio tests revealed weak sound. The two Polk Audio Model E speakers, which can be mounted on the sides of the monitor, couldn’t crank out much volume on our two vocal tracks; even when we played a funky electronic composition by Herbie Hancock it sounded like we were trying to avoid disturbing coworkers.

It’s a good thing this system is already well stocked, because it’s nearly impossible to get inside to add other components. The side panel does slide off easily after you remove two thumbscrews, but doing so reveals a packed-solid interior, with barely any room to fit your fingers. We’ve seen other systems with small cases, such as the Dell Dimension 2100 and the Sony VAIO PCV-RX580, but they include handy features such as swing-out power supplies that allow room to work. The Pavilion 7965 doesn’t have any of those features. And if you are able to get your fingers inside, the room for growth is limited to one available PCI slot and one open internal drive bay.

Running a 1.7-GHz Pentium 4 processor and equipped with a plentiful 512MB of RAM, this system posted a 90 on PC WorldBench 4–about what we’ve seen from other P4-1700 systems with half as much memory. The system likely looses some kick because it uses Intel’s 845 chip set to pair the P4 processor with inexpensive PC-133 SDRAM. PC World tests have shown somewhat better performance when Pentium 4 processors run with RDRAM or DDR SDRAM. The system may also be slowed because its 80GB hard drive spins at 5400 rpm; we generally clock better results from PCs that have hard drives that spin at 7200 rpm.

Gaming performance was a mixed bag: Our judges gave high marks to image quality in both Quake III and Unreal Tournament, but games ran a bit slowly.

HP’s solidly constructed keyboard is loaded with buttons, including seven Internet shortcut keys and seven buttons to control CD and DVD play. It also provides a nice volume control knob and two USB ports. The standard QWERTY keys felt cheap and light under our fingers, however.

HP’s documentation is less extensive than it first appears to be. The manuals are thick, but that’s because they’re made up of sections in three languages: English, French, and Spanish. The setup poster is specific to this system, though its basic animations don’t provide much information, and the poster doesn’t include any text. A separate Quick Start Guide fills in the details missing from the poster and provides a brief troubleshooting section. Our system also included a card with information on reaching tech support and a booklet entitled “Upgrading and servicing the PC” that provides information on the case and components. The software bundle includes Microsoft Works, Pinnacle Studio DV, and McAfee Security Suite.

The Pavilion 7965 is a good-looking system with plenty of hardware for storing and manipulating digital media, but you’ll need a better monitor and speakers to enjoy it.1548PC WorldBench 4 score of 90, Pentium 4-1700 CPU, 512MB of PC-133 SDRAM, Windows XP Home, 80GB hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, 12X/8X/32X CD-RW drive, Asus AGP-V3800M graphics card with 32MB of SDRAM, 17-inch HP MX70 monitor, integrated sound, Polk Audio Model E speakers, network adapter, V.92 modem, midsize tower case, Microsoft Works 2001 with Microsoft Money, Corel WordPerfect Office 2002, Pinnacle Studio DV, McAfee Security Suite, Detto Migration Kit, Quicken Financial Center with Quicken New User Edition, MusicMatch Jukebox 6, one-year parts and labor warranty, free unlimited 24-hour daily toll-call tech support.www.hp-at-home.com800/999-4747