The HP Pavilion MS214 is a budget all-in-one desktop PC. You know, kind of like the Asus Eee Top ET2002, Lenovo C100, and a whole bunch of other machines I’ve mentioned over the past few months. But while many of those models help keep the price and power consumption low by using netbook-like Intel Atom processors, the HP Pavilion MS214 has a 1.5GHz AMD Athlon X2 dual core CPU instead.
The $600 PC also packs ATI Radeon 3200 graphics, which should provide a better gaming experience than you’ll get from the integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics that come with many netbooks and low cost nettops and all-in-one systems, although I’m not 100% sure how it stacks up against a machine with NVIDIA ION graphics yet.
HP sent me a Pavilion MS214 to review, and it’s a nice looking machine. I really like the sturdy base, and the display is bright and vibrant. But here’s what I’ve learned so far:
- The 18.5 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display could be a lot sharper. I kind of expect higher resolution graphics from a display this size.
- Unlike the Eee Top ET2002, which ships with a wireless mouse and keyboard, the MS214 includes a USB mouse and keyboard which means you go through fewer batteries, but have a more cluttered desktop.
- The AMD Athlon X2 dual core CPU may be more powerful than an Intel Atom 230 or 330 chip, but it’s still not fast enough to handle smooth playback from Hulu and other high quality Flash video sites in fullscreen mode. And while Flash Player 10.1 will eventually support GPU acceleration, as far as I know only NVIDIA graphics will be supported, not ATI. Update: It looks like ATI will be supporting Flash Player 10.1, although it’s not clear if all ATI graphics cards will be supported. thanks SCAxman!
That said, the HP MS214 is attractive; it doesn’t take up a lot of space; and the CPU has a bit more kick to it than those found in many other all-in-one desktops that sell for $600 or less.
The computer has 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe. It also has a 6-in-1 memory card reader, 6 USB ports, Ethernet, mic, and headphone jacks.
I’ll be putting the HP Pavilion MS214 through the paces over the next few days, but in the meantime you can take a closer look at the Windows 7 Performance index after the break, along with an unboxing video. Oh yeah, did I mention this puppy is running Windows 7? So the unit I’m reviewing is the version that will ship beginning on October 22nd.
Does it have a VESA mount?
2 more comments 🙂
1. I find it odd that you are having problems with the high quality flash playback. Your CPU has enough horsepower to play them back. It is possible that there is some odd driver bug somewhere. Can you try to reinstall flash?
2. Can you try to install the latest catalyst drivers? You can download Catalyst 9.9 from amd.com. This may also be related to the poor flash playback.
The flash acceleration will be based on DXVA. Any chipset capable of h.264 acceleration and properly exposing it in the drivers will be able to take advantage including Intel’s 4500MHD, ATI’s 3200 (but not 3100) and Nvidia chipsets. The flash acceleration is unrelated to the graphics core.
Note that “properly exposing it in the drivers” is also a requirement so we will have to wait and see how things work out in practice. Hopefully all vendors will have proper drivers.
3DMark of Radeon HD 3200 vs. ION, 9400M, Intel X4500MHD:
https://service.futuremark.com/hardware/graphics_cards/intel_gma_x4500mhd?chipsetId=429&popularChipsetIds=545&popularChipsetIds=467&popularChipsetIds=556&popularChipsetIds=429
The 3200 scores 148, the ION 325. The X4500 scores 18.
Flash 10.1 will support ATI hardware: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ati-flash-adobe-gpu,8800.html
Although AMD is quick to plug HD 5000-series hardware, Flash 10.1 doesn’t require DX11, so I suspect any ATI hardware with stream processors will support it.