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"What can I say - I love mine so much I bought one for my Dad" 2008-05-29
By Alpha (Lake Monticello, VA)
I personally have not had one moment of trouble with my DE100C - nor the one I bought for my father. It's a tremendous convenience having my entire music library (over 400 CDs) in one location and searchable.
There are some great web sites with information for upgrading and enhancing this unit. It's a breeze to upgrade and improve. Mine now has a 1 ghz processor, 256 mb of RAM and a 160 GB drive (all very inexpensive upgrades). My fathers just has the memory upgraded - but both work great.
There is a good Yahoo group that supports these and you can find a lot of helpful and knowledgeable people there. I try to offer my .02 as well...
If you're looking for a nice digital entertainment center without breaking the bank, you'll like the DE100C (or it's sister the DE200C). Fun, easy to use and it's a wonderful convenience. Sound quality is great. The menus attractive. Overall I couldn't be more satisfied.
"Not Recommended" 2002-09-21
By
This product is not worth the cost. It does not connect to the internet efficiently. Wireless is not available. Keyboard doesn't connect which makes editing playlist painful. Although there are 3 USB ports, they don't seem to work. Networking doesn't seem to work behind a firewall. You can't add drivers via the CD because it doesn't understand a data CD.HP Support is unhelpful. I sent e-mail asking about attaching a Lynksys Wireless Ethernet. The response was - we can't help you on third party wireless solutions - just HP. So I responded - what is HP's solution. Answer - "We don't have one"!
I recommend you buy a dedicated PC - it functions better and more reliable.
"Wish I could recommend this more..." 2002-02-24
By J. Ogle (Knoxville, TN USA)
I've had my HPDEC since Christmas. At first it worked great, but about a month later it really started to have problems. It started locking up during its nightly updates and requiring cold boots to recover. Then one day it quit coming up altogether. It would sit at the "Starting Up" screen and go no further. :( I scoured the HP Technical Support site but they had no information on how to fix it so I called HP Tech Support. They put me on hold for almost an hour (at my expense, they don't have an 800 number), and finally got to talk to a technician who told me these "secret" way to reset it:1) During a cold startup, hold down the 'CD' button to reset to try to reinstall the last patch.
2) If that doesn't work, hold down the 'CD' button to get to the '5 seconds' screen, then press and hold 'CD','Library',and 'Record' until a screen comes up saying restoring to Failsafe version. This restores the OS and software to the original factory-installed version. You'll have to go through audio/network setup again, but it DOES NOT erase your saved music, as that is stored safely on a different disk partition.
I had to perform Step 2 about twice a week for the next three weeks till I got fed up and unplugged my network cable (which is the only way to stop the nightly updates). That seemed to work until the power went out last week and I had to do it yet again. Ugh. Can't say I'd call this this thing STABLE by any means... I really like it otherwise, about the only other really annoying thing is it should allow you to hook up a keyboard since entry of song/cd info through the remote control is PAINFUL.
"DE100C not ready for prime-time." 2002-02-13
By P. Grace (Belmont, CA USA)
Wow--I bought one, and it has been the WORST consumer electronics experience of my lifetime.The device does not read CD's when you plug it in and start it up. You have to reset it, but the instructions on how to do so are wrong.
Although you can put in on a local area network, and download music to it, you cannot upload music from it.
Even when downloading it takes from minutes to hours to "post" the downloaded music in your library. (No, you can't find them in your "Recent Downloads" file either.)
When you shut it off, the hard drive continues running 24x7 unless you really shut it down (hold the power switch for 5 seconds) If you have an energy star monitor attached to the unit (it's internal display is really not usable) the monitor will not go to sleep.
When ripping CD's to the hard disk, the machine plays out of the hard disk, but you can't play anything except the tracks being ripped. (unlike a Tivo or ReplayTV where recording and playback are understanbly not tied together)
Every morning the unit powers itself up to check for updates, but it never powers down.
Downloading to a Compact Flash card (by the approved SanDisk SDDR-31) just does not work. "No portable device found".
The unit requires Audio CD-R or CD-RW royalty-paid media, but only low-speed media is writable.
I burned an Audio CD-RW sucessfully, but the unit refused to erase it afterwards. "CD is not writable".
Calls and EMails to HP support are the most ridiculous thing imaginable (I saved them) Support does not read the question, they merely supply an answer that has some of the same keywords as your question--Like the answer to my question about erasing CD-RWs was two-fold: A: "You can't use data CD-RW, you have to use Audio CD-RW" (Since I burned it, they should have known it was Audio media--I told them it was. B: The DE100C does not Erase media (then what does the "Erase CD-RW" function do?)
Anyway, I strongly urge people NOT to buy this. For its incredible lack of functionality, it's WAY overpriced. I'm taking mine back shortly. I'll just buy a dedicated laptop for less.
"Pretty good first try...." 2002-01-13
By Allan Gobin
The good stuff:1. Very intuitive on-screen menu system. Simple and effective.
2. Built in modem for Internet access. No need for network connection.
3. Built in Internet radio...if you listen to radio.
4. Built in Ethernet network. Allows MP3 uploads but no downloads.
5. Large hard-drive: 40G
6. CD writer. Allow you to create CDs of MP3 selections.
7. Fast MP3 ripping to hard disk.
8. Very stable software.
The negative stuff:
1. Offers ONLY MP3 compression format with the best MP3 quality of 256bps. While this quality level will be adequate for most people. Audiophiles (like myself) should expect to lose about 10-15% of CD quality. (Because MP3 compression is similar to JPEG compression, expect the lost to be overall detail, especially in the high-end.) The new Compaq unit offers the max MP3 quality of 320bps but falls short in other areas. I have already requested of HP to offer an uncompressed format or at least the higher 320bps option. Since they are using Real Network jukebox software, which already offers this, it should be easy.
2. No backup option. BEWARE, if that hard-drive crashes you will lose everything on it. I am planning on figuring out a way to backup the drive. It took a lot of work to get all my music into it in the first place.
3. Only able to download music to a very limited number of MP3 portable players e.g. RIO.
Actually, besides the sound quality, which I have already admit would be more than satisfactory for most people. I have no complaints about the unit. I actually bought a Krell DAC to use with the unit, which helps a lot. The onboard DAC is standard fare...but plug it into a good DAC via the coaxial out digital port and it will become much easier to live with if you are an audiophile.
FYI: this unit is feeding a Krell DAC and power amp connected to B&Ws.
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