Hewlett-Packard's Pavilion Slimline s3300 series of desktop computers are one-third of the size of a traditional Pavilion tower; this makes them well suited for use in environments in which space is constrained, such as a kitchen. And while you usually pay a lot more for a smaller size, these computers start out fairly well configured at quite a bit less than $500.

We took a look at the AMD-powered Slimline s3300z. Inside, there's a 2.4GHz Athlon 64 LE-1620 processor coupled with a gigabyte of speedy 667MHz DDR2 memory. This core power will handle most applications without a problem, although you may feel slowdown while multitasking or during intensive operations. You can upgrade either processor or RAM reasonably -- stepping up to the dual-core Athlon 64 X2 BE-2300 CPU with twin 1.9GHz processing cores is only $50.

Storage space starts out at a very respectable 250GB, giving you a sizeable amount of room for housing multimedia files and for installing applications. You can, of course, beef up the hard drive as well; doubling the storage will add $50 to the overall system price.

The optical drive is even better than the hard drive. It's a LightScribe SuperMulti DVD-RW drive. This drive can burn to CD, DVD, and dual layer DVDs (which let you store up to four hours of high-quality video or 8.5GB of data on a single disk). But it's also a LightScribe drive, which means that you can imprint professional-quality labels on the surface of your disks. This special media costs a little more than traditional discs and the burns take some extra time, but they look great compared to writing on disks with markers or printing sticker labels.

The front of this sleek mini-tower also features a 15-in-1 media card reader, which allows you to transfer files and photos from your digital camera or PDA by simply popping in the memory card. There's also a USB port and a headphone jack on the front of the tower so you can hook up headphones or a peripheral without having to turn the tower around.

The baseline operating system on these computers is Windows Vista Home Premium. This OS will work fine for most users, but if you're looking for more advanced multimedia tools, you might want to increase the hard drive size as well since stored video eats gigabytes quickly.

Graphics are integrated in these desktop computers. The device in question is NVIDIA's GeForce 6150LE graphics, so the performance will be better than traditional integrated graphics, but you'll still notice some limitations during gaming or other graphically intensive tasks. HP did manage to make room for a PCI Express slot inside these systems, however, so you can upgrade to a full-fledged video card. Stepping up to a 256MB ATI Radeon 2400 Pro will cost you $60.

Because these computers are so small, HP provides the option to go wireless. There's a network adapter so you can hook your computer up to a wired home network, but if you want to cut the cords, you can add an 802.11b/g wireless USB card for $30 and have it connected to your wireless network anywhere in the house.

There's no monitor included with these models at the baseline price, although HP includes some nicely priced displays to bundle with the Slimline. You can, for example, get a 17-inch widescreen LCD for $130 or a 20-inch widescreen for $200 under current rebates if you buy direct from HP.

The systems' software bundle is rather typical of a new PC. You get Microsoft Works 9.0 with the computers, but if you need traditional Office applications, you'll need to upgrade. Stepping up to the Home and Student edition of Microsoft Office with Word and Excel costs around $150.

Even after making some upgrades and adding a display, you can bring one of these compact systems home at a nice price. If you're looking for an affordable, compact solution to your home computing needs, you could certainly do worse than the HP Pavilion Slimline s3300 series.


Pros: Excellent compact design, good starting price
Cons: No display at baseline