HP's Compaq dx2000 series of desktop computers for business offers a bare bones package for a fairly bare bones price, letting you add more where your office needs it. These business desktop computers start out at under $400, but you'll need to spend extra for a monitor.

That low price cuts some major corners on the core components. For starters, you get an Intel Celeron D 325 processor running at 2.53GHz inside your desktop. It's not a bad budget processor, and it'll handle basic office needs with adequate performance. If you need more power, you can upgrade to a 2.8GHz Pentium 4 processor for less than $100.

The real problem with the power core is that the low-end systems start with only 128MB of RAM, which will barely run Windows XP, even sluggishly. At the time of this review, it'll add $80 to the price of your desktop to get the memory up to an appropriate 512MB.

And speaking of running Windows XP, the default operating system on these business desktop computers is the Home edition of XP. You'll have to shell out another $70 to get the Professional version. But all told, you can have a pretty powerful desktop computer for business and still keep the price at not much over $500 by incorporating some of these upgrades.

HP includes a 40GB 5,400rpm hard drive with these business desktop computers. It's a decent amount of space, but depending on your needs you may need more room for file installation and storage. You can double the size of the drive and beef the speed up to 7,200rpm for around $60, giving you more room and speedier transfer rates (which translates into faster performance for almost any tasks).

These desktop computers for business ship inside a handsome black microtower, taking up precious little space on or under your desk. There are two USB 2.0 ports on the front of the tower (with six more around back), making it easy to hook up peripherals without crawling behind your system.

Graphics are integrated into the motherboard and share video memory with the main system RAM (another compelling reason to upgrade the overall memory). If you won't be editing photos and video or other intensive tasks, these integrated graphics will work fine in most office settings. If you do need to upgrade down the road, the CPU has an available AGP and three PCI-Express graphics slots for high-end graphics cards.

HP knows that most businesses rely more on their network for file transfers than floppy drives or even optical drives, so these business desktop computers ship with only a basic CD-ROM drive and no floppy drive at all. You can add a floppy drive for under $20 if your business still relies on one, and there are some basic optical drive upgrades as well. Those drives include: DVD-ROM drives, CD-RW drives for burning audio and data CDs, and combination drives that will play DVDs and burn to CDs. HP doesn't offer any DVD writers on this line.

The input devices are rather basic: The keyboard doesn't offer any extras and the mouse is non-optical. There's an integrated network port for hooking this business desktop computer up to your office network, but it's only 10/100. HP lets you bump it up to Gigabit Ethernet speeds for $35. There's no modem by default, so if you need one in your system, it'll add more to the price tag.

The software bundle on these desktop computers for business starts with only Microsoft Works 7.0, but HP lets you upgrade to the Basic Edition of Microsoft Office for less than $100--a good price for Word, Excel, and Outlook. HP offers a one-year limited warranty on these business desktop computers, and it covers parts, labor, and next-day on-site coverage if it's warranted.

The HP Compaq dx2000 line start out with low prices, but also pretty sparse components. If you make some key upgrades, you can guarantee strong performance on your desktop computers for business, for a price your accounting department will appreciate.

Pro: Good starting price, compact microtower
Con: No monitor, low starting RAM

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Compaq/Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185
800-888-9909
http://www.hp.com

Ratings:
Value: 4
Performance: 3
Ease of Use: 4
Features: 3
Overall: 4

Warranty
1-year limited