Though the HP Compaq 4000 Pro ($549 direct, as tested) doesn't have all the bells and whistles of one of those Sandy Bridge desktops, it has just about all the things your small to medium-sized business needs, at a fair price. Therefore it is our first SMB Editors' Choice.

Design and Features
The Compaq 4000 Pro follows HP's current business desktop design: mostly utilitarian, with parallel strakes filling half of the front panel for a little bit of character. If you've seen a few (or a few thousand) recent HP corporate desktops, you know the look. The Compaq 4000 Pro is a small form factor (SFF) desktop, which means it has some (limited) expansion room. The outside of the chassis has good connectivity, some current, and some old as computing itself. Along with 10 USB 2.0 ports, there's a serial port for those ancient peripherals your business still supports (modems, printers, bar code scanners, etc). I suppose you could hook your new PC up to the serial line that your business's VAX mainframe uses. The desktop comes with a VGA and DVI port, and both ports are usable simultaneously for dual-monitor configurations.

Inside the chassis, you'll find all the enterprise-class hallmarks: tool-less chassis door, hinged brackets for the power supply, optical drive, and one of the two hard drive bays. There's also tool-less PCI and PCIe card installation. The desktop can handle one PCI card, one PCIe x1 card, and one PCIe x16 graphics card. All three have to be half-height cards, due to the orientation of the system's motherboard. The chassis is easy to get into and service, so any IT staff you have will be happy.

The Compaq 4000 Pro is a little less expensive than the truly enterprise-class HP Compaq 6000 ($1,109 list, 4 stars) and 8000 series desktops, even if the chassis design is derived from those platforms. In order to reach $499 base point, some things were limited. There isn't any other chassis or form factor available (so USFF and larger towers are out), the desktop is limited to two memory DIMM slots (as opposed to the four in higher-end desktops), and the system lacks a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) security chip option. The small-to-medium business (SMB) that the 4000 Pro is aimed at is not likely to miss those features, since the business can always jump up in the HP Compaq model line if they need the extra features.

One enterprise-class feature it does have (aside from the serviceability) is that HP promises to have a 12-month guaranteed availability. This means that you can buy 20 systems over the next four quarters instead of having to buy them all at once. This can help save your cash flow, particularly if you are gradually replacing old, disparate desktop PCs you've bought over the years. The 12-month guarantee essentially means that the last PC you buy this year will be the same as the first, and that the software and drivers you tested in January will work in each PC without modification in December.

The desktop comes with a few HP utilities pre-loaded, including HP Power Assistant and HP ProtectTools SMB. Office 2010 is pre-loaded, but you'll have to purchase a key from Microsoft to fully unlock it. There's Roxio Creator Business for the DVD burner, and last but not least, there's a 60-day trial to Norton Internet Security. I'd prefer at lest a year, but at least there's some protection for your business for two months at least. The system has a couple other collaboration tools installed, but the best thing about the system is that it's relatively clean: no extraneous trialware or bloatware aside from the stuff discussed here. That way there's less chance of some miscellaneous program causing you trouble, at least right away.