Dv8000z Pre-purchase Screen and Chip Questions

I'm about to buy one of the new dv8000z laptops (17" Display) with a single 1GB stick of DD SDRAM and an 80GB 5200 HD. I WAS going to choose the WSXGA+ "wide viewing" (1680 X 1050) display but today they began offering the WXGA+ "Ultra BrightView Widescreen" with 1440 X 900 native resolution. The WXGA+ is $50 more than the WSXGA+ display. I don't know a **** thing about these displays so I thought I'd see what you all thought about them; and see if I could get some fairly layman-level explanations of the differences and recommendations on which would be better.

I'm going to be using it for CAD- specifically for AutoDesk's Inventor and Solidworks. I'll also be using it for general business purposes as well as for surfing the web. watching DVD, light Photoshop and picture editing and other typical uses.

Recommendations?

Also, today they began offering the dv8000z with a 2.4Ghz Turion- up until now they've been offering the 2.2 Ghz Turion, which HAD been my choice. The 2.4Ghz chip loads another $125 on to the price. I'm leaning towards spending money on the faster chip, but I'm curious if anyone knows of a comparison of the two and whether there would be a significant enough performance difference to justify spending the extra money? I'm getting student pricing and I qualified for credit but I don't want to spend any more than I have to; and I'm really curious whether there's a significant performance difference between the 2.2 and the 2.4Ghz Turion chip?

Recommendations?


Thanks everyone!

Nick
Austin, TX

 

I'd take a look in the Notebook Reviews Section - we've just had a dv8000z reviewed by a member. As reguards to the screen - I'd go with the WSXGA if you want more viewing space, as there are more pixels than the WXGA+. The WXGA+ screen, while excellent, offers less viewing space in exchange for larger standard font.

 

Thanks for your answer- I'm taking your advice!

Thanks! Nick

 

In my opinion, you're better off spending that $125 on something else, like even more ram or a faster hard drive.

 

The ML44 is about 9% faster than the ML40... hmm. Your CAD work can likely use all the CPU power it can get. If you have money left over after configuring 2GB RAM and all the other goodies, by all means get the faster CPU.

 

What you could do is get 512 MB of ram, get the faster processor and then upgrade the ram with aftermarker RAM which will end up saving you money.

 

I agree with Rahul. It is better spending that money somewhere else. Like buy after market DDR400 memory( rather than taking HP DDR333) which increase your performance almost by that much, as well Memory hungry application will satisfy too.

If you still have surplus money you could use it buy 7200RPM drives instead of 5400RPM.

 

The "Ultra" Brightview Display is a High-Def display.
It uses two light tubes to eliminate the screen vs. one in the normal brightview with higher resolution.
Result = Brightness and High Definition equal to a plasma TV!
I believe HP is the first to implement this technology on a laptop!

I recently ordered this laptop as well and will be getting it real soon. Just got notification from HP that it has shipped out today. I opted for the high def display even if the res is 1440 x 900, which is still very respectable.

I opted for the 2x256 mb ram (cheapest option to order media center os) but have already purchased 2 x 1gb crucial ram sticks to max out the ram at 2gb. Also, have ordered two hitachi 7200 RPM 100GB hard drives to replace the two 80gb 5400 rpm drives (look for them on ebay soon).

I traded in a fully loaded ZD8000 that I recently built with also 2 gb ram, 7400 rpm 100gb hd, brightview display and XP Pro.
Too big, old school technology processor (3.4ghz P4), too heavy, and battery life was about an hour.
I got the MCE on the ZV8000Z because I recently found out it's actually based on XP PRO!