Best Buy Desktop special: Is it a good deal?

[Dante]

I am shopping for a Media Center type desktop and came across this special buy in last Sunday's paper.

Best Buy Exclusive: HP Pavilion 3400+ Desktop with 17-Inch Flat-Screen CRT Monitor & Inkjet Printer for $569.97 AR ($320 in mail-in rebates).

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?id=pcmprd39000050003&type=product

It uses the AMD Athlon™ 64 processor 3400+ and has 512MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM, 200GB Serial ATA hard drive and ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics. It does have a DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with double-layer support and a 16x DVD-ROM drive.

The 17" flat screen monitor is CRT, not LCD. The processor is not a Pentium and the tower bears a model number(1129n) which I can't find anywhere else on the web - perhaps it was made just for Best Buy.

I plan to use the system for burning music CDs and DVDs, home office work (office 2003) and my 4th grader son wil use it for schoolwork, music, DVDs and PC games.

Is this a good deal?

Are there better deals in August (back to school sales)?

Are there any issues with the Athlon processor?

And finally, is the Pavillion a good brand?

Or should I look at a Dell 4700 or 5100?

Will appreciate getting some experience based feedback from all the enlightened ones on the board.

Dante

 

[Michael]

I own a Dell, and I am happy with it.

 

[wabmester]

That HP looks like a pretty good deal to me. The CPU is plenty fast, the disk is a good size, I like the LightScribe DVD burner, and that should be enough RAM to do the stuff you want to do. The only thing I don't like is the CRT and dealing with all those rebates, but that's just my personal preference.

 

[azanon]

Dante,

That looks like a pretty good pc for all the anticipated tasks you listed except pc games. Granted, he's "just" a fourth grader, but if you forsee him wanting to play some of the latest titles out, like battlefield 2 which is really hot, that ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 graphics card just isnt going to cut it.

But he's just a 4th grader, so that might not be such a big deal than if he were a teenager or older.

As for HP, i had a wonderful experience with them long ago. Granted, for the past 6-7 years, ive just built my own.