HP ProDesk 600G4 2019, Core i5, 16GB, 500GB SSD, Black

A $244 refurbished office tank with great ports and a snappy SSD. Perfect for work, useless for games.

The 6-core i5 at 3.2GHz handles everyday multitasking without breaking a sweat. We're talking dozens of Chrome tabs, Office apps, video calls, all running smoothly. The 500GB SSD makes boot times and program launches feel snappy, which is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade over older refurbished machines with spinning hard drives. The surprise? That port selection. Nine USB-A ports, two DisplayPorts, VGA, serial, and USB-C on a sub-$250 machine is genuinely impressive. But the GPU is a weak spot, landing in the bottom 15% of our database. Don't expect anything beyond light photo editing or very old games.

Against the Apple Mac mini M4, the HP gets absolutely destroyed in performance and efficiency, but the Mac mini costs several times more and lives in a different universe. The more relevant comparison is the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q Gen 5 or ASUS NUC 14 Pro. Those mini PCs are newer, smaller, and more power-efficient, but they'll cost you significantly more for similar RAM and storage. The Dell Precision 3630 is the closest direct competitor, another refurbished tower with similar specs, but the HP's port selection and reliability scores give it a slight edge. If you want tiny and modern, go NUC or ThinkCentre. If you want cheap and capable, the ProDesk wins.

At $244 USD, this is a no-brainer for basic office or home productivity. You're getting a capable 6-core CPU, 16GB of RAM, and an SSD for less than most Chromebooks. The value proposition falls apart if you need any graphical horsepower, but for spreadsheets, email, and web browsing, it's hard to beat.

The HP ProDesk 600 G4 is a refurbished office workhorse that knows exactly what it is, and mostly doesn't pretend otherwise. You're getting a 6-core 8th gen Intel i5, 16GB of DDR4, and a 500GB SSD for around $244 USD, which is a genuinely solid deal for basic productivity. The one thing to know? This is a business machine built for spreadsheets and browser tabs, not a gaming rig or creative workstation. That integrated Intel HD 630 graphics is a hard ceiling.

If you're looking for anything with graphical muscle, this isn't it. Go get a used gaming PC with a dedicated GPU or a newer mini PC with better integrated graphics instead. Also skip it if you want something compact and silent, the mid-tower form factor and active cooling aren't subtle. And if you're allergic to refurbished hardware, the shorter warranty and potential cosmetic wear will bug you.

Buy it if you need a cheap, reliable desktop for work, school, or home office tasks. The HP ProDesk 600 G4 delivers exactly what it promises: solid everyday performance with excellent connectivity at a price that's tough to argue with. Just don't expect it to do anything graphically demanding, and you'll be happy.