• expired

HP Pavilion 510-A013A Desktop $298 Windows 10, Intel J3060, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD, WiFi @ Harvey Norman

800

Really cheap PC on sale at HN with a hard to resist price. Originally $448 according to PriceHipster.

Sure, many people may consider Celeron to be a Potato or the Bieber of CPUs, but it'll still do a great job at being a media PC and can be upgraded with that spare SSD you impulse purchased a while ago. It'll also make a good PC for the parents.

Quick Specs

  • Windows 10
  • Intel Celeron J3060 1.60GHz-2.48GHz
  • 4GB DDR3 RAM
  • 1TB 7200RPM HDD
  • 802.11 b/g/n Wireless\
  • HDMI
  • DVD+RW Drive

Free Click and Collect at most stores or $49 for delivery.

Related Stores

Harvey Norman
Harvey Norman

closed Comments

  • +5

    can be upgraded with that spare SSD you impulse purchased a while ago

    I bought a SSD - must have stayed in car boot for 12 months before I got around to using it.

    $298 seems a good find.

  • +13

    +1 for the Bieber of CPU's

  • +10

    the Bieber of CPUs

    I think I need someone to explain this to me.

    This PC is very popular while disliked by many, yet getting better with age? Or maybe it was made in Canada?

    • +3

      I think he means many 12 year old girls are in love with it!

      • Nah, I think he means his mum dont like it…

        • +27

          ….and she likes everyone!

        • +1

          @cheepo: this gave me a big smile on my face 😂

      • +3

        Nah this is Intel's answer to AMD's lackluster APU… It's the BPU; Bieber Processing Unit

    • +2

      People hate Bieber and will go as far as saying his music isn't music and is an embarrassment among other things. Many people continue the ongoing gag of Celeron processors being crappy and no good. Understand now?

      • 'Bieber of CPU's' - made me chuckle - thanks and probably spot on comment too.

    • +6

      getting better with age

      Because every second brings us closer to his retirement?

      • +1

        death

    • +1

      looks good but useless

      • I guess that's the point !!

    • Maybe it sounds like an autotuned 12 year old?

  • +10

    completely not worth it because the CPU is BGA… ie, its not socketed so the PC will always be at this performance

    that Lenovo $499 pc is a lot better value.

    • AMD's AM1 line up was updated in Jan 2016 with one CPU that is almost 200MHz faster than the previous best. It took almost two years for that!

  • +5

    That celeron is a potato.
    They use the same Airmont cores as those ~$100 chinese atom tablets and even those are at least quad cores.
    You'd get a better price and performance from upgrading a core 2 duo off ebay.

    • -2

      I actually checked before posting. This Celeron outperforms The Atom Baytrail Z3735F and Atom Cherry Trail x5-Z8300.

      • +16

        You used one of those cpu comparison sites didn't you?
        Those are trash. Compare benchmarks on your own.

        J3060-Geekbench4 ~1900 multi, Cinebench R15 68 multi, X264 HD benchmark Pass 1 28.4, Sunspider 1.0 366.5 Source
        Z8300-Geekbench4 ~2200 multi, Cinebench R15 94 multi, X264 HD benchmark Pass 1 35.7, Sunspider 1.0 505.1 Source
        The celeron can do better in tests with memory loads but overall it's slower or on par with mobile chips, and outdated mobile chips at that.

        • +6

          Yeah I did. Good to know, thanks.

    • +1

      Yeap, benchmark

      Intel Atom x5-Z8300 @ 1.44GHz>> 1202
      J3060 >> 1053

    • +1

      For those with older parents or young kids needing internet/word processor/media player I actually go a $70 android box these days.
      Cheaper. And you're less likely to get a call asking for IT help every week or so.

      • +1

        I'm listening, what would you recommend…. my wife wants a machine just to do homework…(ie. Word and Email)….??

        • +1

          A $70 android box.

        • +1

          If she's happy to use google docs or Microsoft Word (android version), I've just bought this one. Check around for prices. Banggood etc.

          http://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-mini-pc/pp_321409.html?wid=21

          Just be mindful of USB connections. If you want to connect several devices (e.g mouse/keyboard, external hard-drive and something else) you might need a USB hub or to look for a similar model with 4 USB ports.
          If you're planning to use an old monitor just check that its got HDMI.
          Otherwise, just plug it in and download the apps you need from Google play.

        • +1

          http://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/lenovo-idea…

          try this one? with micro HDMI u could connect to external monitor

        • +3

          Someone's wife is gonna be disappointed when they open the mystery parcel from BangGood…

  • +2

    I would prefer to get a laptop - you can get similar specs for the same price. You can hook it up to a monitor and external keyboard if you want the desktop experience but with a portability bonus.

  • Would this be better then an lets say a single core 3.4ghz 4gb ram 2gb nvidia card.

    • Do you know the CPU model? Don't know of any single core CPUs which are clocked like that and released in the past 10 years…:/ So, most likely this will perform better.

      • http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00619311

        Chip set is 945p

        Similar to this but the video card was 1 now from memory and the clock speed was 3.2 or 3.4 GHz.

        Really I need something for my daughter to do reading eggs and other UN fun educational games that my teacher wife wants her to play.

        • Sounds like a Pentium 4 in that case.

          This PC would be an upgrade, but not great- as others have pointed out, you can get a laptop with similar specs for around the same cost. Or wait for the eBay 20% sales where the significantly more powerful Dell Inspiron 11 with an SSD goes on sale.

        • @donnot: I have a Dell optiplex 780 which is my retired box but works very well. Only a duel core and 4 GB RAM and shared graphics but runs Ubuntu well.
          Wife dose not want her playing with Linux but I'm not convinced the exposure is going to be damaging. OK so I'll wait a bit for some better deals….. Sounded good for the price but not worth it.

        • @Hotkolbas:

          You could always just install Windows 10 without a license (only real drawbacks are losing the ability to change the wallpaper and having an "Activate Windows" watermark over everything in the bottom right of the screen. Also don't get updates from memory but shouldn't be an issue for a basic machine like this.

          Could potentially also look at a machine like this. Comes down to 139 shipped with the $10 off code which is pretty reasonable, and comes with an OS.

        • You should buy that Lenovo that Scotty posted before it runs out.

          Haswell i5 for 499 is a very rare deal.

    • Depends on the CPU.
      It's faster than a single core pentium 4 but it's about the same speed as an athlon 64 at 3.2GHz with the admittedly limited single test of cinebench.
      See here and here
      It's definitely not significantly faster though, no.
      Also the iGPU is certainly not faster than any discrete gpu I know of that has 2GB of vram

  • +10

    NO NO NO NO just DON'T. This computer is UTTER JUNK.

    I have no problem Celerons usually (socketed Celerons are quite decent).

    But this one is based on an ATOM, except somehow even WORSE than an ATOM chip.

    NOT UPGRADEABLE.

    It was suggested "Oh Just upgrade it with SSD"… well that makes you void the warranty on this piece of junk which will likely break anyway and the performance benefit of a SSD would be severely bottlenecked.

    I know it's cheap, but it's also nasty. For this price you might as well get yourself a cheap and nasty laptop. At least it will have utility in being able to be moved around.

    If you want a reliable computer that is not too slow before you've even bought it, get a real PC.

    • I agree that this is pretty crap (CPU seems to be pretty much identical to the N3060 used in very budget notebooks), but I was interested to know where you found that this is based on the Atom chips…Only a dual core compared to the quad atoms and has much better single-threaded performance.

    • It was suggested "Oh Just upgrade it with SSD"… well that makes you void the warranty on this piece of junk which will likely break anyway and the performance benefit of a SSD would be severely bottlenecked.

      Very easy to add/remove an SSD without them ever knowing ;)

      • I have seen this machines in person and they put a security sticker over the case which says that the warranty "Reverts to HP basic warranty if broken" whatever basic means, probably the bare legal minimum they can get away with.

        • +1

          I have not read a page or paragraph in the warranty manual ever mention about breaking the sticker will void the warranty….

          Anyway with $300 and a basic pc assemble skill (turn some screws), you can easier get your hands on something 5 times faster than this "thingy" cant really call it PC, it cant even reach PC level. Unless PC stands for Painfully slow Computer.

    • +1

      You might as well get a used laptop with Core i5 for the same price.

  • How to upgrade to SSD and load the pre-installed Windows10 to the SSD?

    Thanks a lot.

  • How is this PC compared to this laptop that comes up frequently:
    Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Laptop (Pentium N3710 Quad-Core + 128GB SSD) - $319.20

    • +1

      Slower, bigger and with less SSD, to put it quickly.
      Also it's not a laptop so it doesn't have a battery or a screen

    • +1

      Much, much slower. Dell has an SSD and Quad-core Pentium with similar per-core performance to the dual core in this machine.

      Plus you get a portable laptop with great battery life.

    • Cheers fellas!

  • +2

    don't waste your money on SSD upgrading with this trash, any tech can tell you when CPU is 100% usage most of the time then you want to put a SSD to make it faster…is that a joke?

  • -3

    For the pensioner's out there, or low-income earners trying to job-seek, send emails, CV's, web browse— I'd say it's just dandy. Is it an i3, i5, i7, etc…? No. But it doesn't have to be. For those who are really watching what they spend, this is a decent deal for a low price. It's easy to say that, "such & such deal- $50-200 dearer" is better—- unless you've been saving & need it now, for whatever reason.

    +1 to the OP

    :)

    • +10

      Actually there are cheaper options that are much faster.

      There's this that was just posted by donnot
      You can go even cheaper and still have a much faster computer
      Or this if the windows 10 and 1TB hard drive is important to you
      Or you could go with a laptop like this

      The point is you can get quite a bit for $300, and this deal isn't really good from any perspective.

      • +2

        100% agree with your comment, if you really wanted to go all out and spend the full $300 you could get something like this with an older Sandy bridge i7, clearly there are far superior options to this thing in a similar price bracket.

        The CPU/SOC in this thing is designed for "Ultra low power" applications such as NUC & mini portable PC's. This is not something you would want to have in your PC even for everyday applications such as word processing, browsing email etc you would likely run into performance issues.

        • +1

          I wans't even looking at the upper end of the price bracket but dang there's some quality stuff (I dont know why everything I post is a dell I swear it's not intentional)

          Also you bring up a good point. Why the hell is this thing so big? I understand that some of those TV boxes have thermal issues but that's just ridiculous.

        • +1

          @Lief1250:
          Most of the Refurb stuff you will find is Dell simply because they are the biggest supplier/leaser of all these PC's to Business, to a lesser extent you will find HP and lenovo.

          The size of the case according to the specs is 16 W X 32 D X 32 H cm and 5.7 Kg good grief what could be in there to make it so heavy the TDP of the SOC is 6 W so its not like it barely even needs a heat sink at all and only needs a tiny power supply.

        • It needs to be noted that that generation of CPU's was a real power hog.

    • +3

      There is no screen, so they have to buy that as well. They can buy a z8300 tablet with keyboard for the same price (if they want touch screen) or the best option would be to buy the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Laptop (Pentium N3710 Quad-Core + 128GB SSD) - $319.20 instead.

  • +3

    This isn't really useful as a media PC.. even with a GPU you can't GPU accelerate a lot of content so you simply won't be able to play it.

    • I should have specified a more basic media PC setup. Not talking 4K here.

      • +3

        even 1080p in HEVC/x265 would have issues.

        • +1

          Alright then… how about a Youtube capable PC? :P

        • +5

          Even 720p HEVC would have issues, this thing's slower than phone cpus from 2013.
          I'd be worried about it with 1080pHi10 H.264

        • +2

          @Clear:
          Have you seen youtube's CPU utilization?
          My i5 2500k can't handle it at 4k and 1080p is anywhere from 10%-30% depending on how busy the scene is.
          Edit: I looked into it and this is just because I use chrome. My bad.

        • +3

          @Lief1250:

          Can this PC display an image of a potato in a web browser?

        • +1

          @Lief1250:

          Not talking 4K here.

        • +1

          @samfisher5986:
          You should be able to if that is your primary intention dependent on the resolution of course. You may even be able to successfully run Potato simulator

    • GPU? GPU? What??? This thing doesn't even have a PCI Express port so you won't be able to upgrade it with a dedicated GPU. You'd be stuck with the piece of crap integrated into it which I doubt could even handle Youtube very well let alone Pornhub.

  • +2

    -1 out of 10 .. complete moldy potato wouldnt give to mum for facebook or emails
    the 4gb of ram and 1tb hdd is the only good thing in here and if its not $80 aint worth it

    a second hand $99 core 2 duo off ebay would be a 2 out of 10

    • the case and power supply seems alright might worth another $80 but that's it.

  • -2

    Celeron based PC or laptops for that matter are in my "never again" list. I had a Celeron based laptop and performance became erratic after and frustrating after about 18 months.

    Speaking of laptops, advice will be appreciated whether it would be possible to purchase a lightweight laptop (about 1.5 Kg) for approx. $1000 with Intel i5 or i7 CPU, 8 GB RAM and a screen size of about 13 inches. SSD hard drive would be preferable but a normal hard drive of about 1 TB will also do. Laptop will be used mainly for school work but something tells me my kids will also use it for viewing youtube videos/movies and music clips. I realise there have been a couple of Lenovo E470 postings, but the delivery timeframe is quite long (up to 3 weeks) and it does get a bit on the heavy side (about 2 to 2.2 kg). I would like to take delivery of the laptop in the next 4-5 calendar days.

    Macbook Air 13 inch is another choice but even with the specials on the cost blows out to close to $1500 and if I can help it I would rather not spend much more than $1000 (although I may not have much choice in the end).

    • But if you want to buy from a retail shop you are paying a bigger margin.

    • +1

      Only buy a MacBook Air for two reasons - you want to use OS X and durability. On average, I believe they are more durable than other laptops. OS X is another kettle of fish and personally i enjoy it for a number of reasons and dislike Windows for a number of reasons. Do not buy a MacBook Air to run Windows on, because although it it technically possible, the battery life is woeful and the trackpad is not properly supported. It just feels clunky.

      • MacBook Air are good but pricey unfortunately and it will be my last resort but you are right in saying that they are durable products.
        Found an Acer ultrabook from MSY for about $1000 with the specs I want but it's currently out of stock and not sure whether they are as durable as the MacBook Air (heard from friends that they can be a hit and miss when it comes to durability).

  • Core makes it worthless. Would rather pay an extra $50 and get something usable.

  • Bumper Sticker:

    Shame HP, Shame.

  • Good find. I need a few new porn computers. Porn computers don't last like they used too!

  • Can this do 4k video & 5.1 bitstream audio output?

    • Nope.

  • Hi Guys, I was planning to get this PC for my parents but the comments above really put me off…
    Can you please help me to choose an entry level desktop PC? I am a little bit worry that we won't get any help with refurbished ones if it breaks down.
    Thanks

  • Back to $448 now! expired.

Login or Join to leave a comment