HP dv5z Mini-Review with XP

Overview
I bought a HP dv5z from HP.com a couple weeks ago. I received it Monday about 8:00AM or so. The site's already got a big dv5z review if you need something more in-depth. I'll just go over a few things I liked and disliked. Here's my little mini-review.

Usage
I bought this as more of a multimedia machine. I wanted a nice bright glossy screen as a contrast to my dim ThinkPad. The Blu-Ray was a nice throw in too. I went widescreen this time. It's nice to browse while watching a Hulu video, which tough to do on my 4:3 ThinkPad. I had heard good things about the screen on the new dv5 series so I decided to take the plunge.

Buying
I bought directly from HP using the $300 off $999 coupon. I ordered on a Saturday and I had it the next Monday. Pretty quick all in all I'd say. My total shipped including tax was $760 which seemed pretty reasonable given the high resolution screen and Blu-Ray drive.

Specs
Here's a few of the highlights:
Model: dv5z
CPU: AMD 2.00GHz Turion x2 Utra RM-70
Memory: 3GBGB DDR2 P6400
Hard Drive: 160GB Seagate 7200.2
Screen: Glossy 15.4" WSXGA+ 1680x1050
Optical Drive: Optiarc BC-5500S DVDRW/BD-ROM
Graphics Card: AMD Mobility Radeon 3450
Weight: 5.8 Lbs.
Operating System: Vista Home Premium

Build & Design
Overall, I'd say pretty good. The base is solid as is the screen, not ThinkPad or Latitude solid, but good nonetheless. It's a little plasticky for my tastes, probably more easily scratched given the right circumstancs. It attracts fingerprints like bees to honey, much like my old T series Thinkpads, but they're easily wiped off. I probably won't take it out of the house much so I probably don't need the best quality. I'm not over picky about looks, preferring function over form. I like darker notebooks, the dv5z isn't quite there, but I wouldn't says it's homely either. Although the specs say the weight is the same as my ThinkPad, it feels heavier. Now maybe that's just the way it sits on my lap, but I don't have a scale to test it otherwise.

Screen
It's very good. By a wide margin the best thing about the machine. It's I don't think as good as the 450nit screen I saw on the Fujitsu A3130, but it's one of the better glossy screens I've seen. I went for the regular not the Infinity screen, opting for less glare. The screen is nice and bright. Viewing angles are good, colors rich and vibrant. It's not the FlexView on the T series ThinkPads in terms of viewing angles, but better than the average notebook I would say. No bad pixels and leakage was minimal. It's been a nice change of pace from my R60. Here's a pic of the dv5z next to my R60. It doesn't look it, but the HP is way brighter. Maybe it's the camera.





CPU & Performance
I'm not really a power user. I could probably get by with a Sempron/Celeron. The AMD has more than enough oomph for me. Most everyday tasks aren't that hard on the CPU anyway.

Drives & Storage
I threw in the 160GB drive from when I upgraded my ThinkPad to a SSD. Performance is good. I went with the BD-ROM drive cause I'm just starting to get some Blu-Ray discs. I'll probably be picking up Ironman and Batman on Blu-Ray. The few I have so far look pretty good on the glossy screen. The tray end seemed a little flimsy and the button is hard to push to eject, both minor niggles in my opinion.

Keyboard Area
It's not a ThinkPad or close in my opinion. The keyboard is very firm. The keys seem cheaper. They don't have the nice tactile feel of typing on a ThinkPad and are louder/clackier. The keys feel bigger, though that's an observation not a measurement. When I have to stretch for a T or Y key it seems further. The FN and CTRL keys are swapped from my ThinkPad, it'll take a bit of re-adjustment. I also disliked lights ringing the keyboard like for the QuickPlay, WiFi and other indicators. They're bright white(I'm a poet). I know some people love this stuff, but I found them to be irritating. I think a darker blue or purple would have worked just as well without being so bothersome.

The touchpad is big and spacious, but seems to require more effort than most I've used. The touchpad buttons are terrible, even worse than the one I saw at Best Buy a few weeks back. I was hoping it was a fluke, but sadly its not. They're stiff, loud and clicky. They also need more effort to push them. You miss some clicks because you don't press hard enough. I always liked the smooth buttons on the dv6000/dv2000, but they seem to have gone the opposite way this time. I know a lot of people wouldn't notice this, but it'll bugs the heck out of me. If I return the notebook, this likely will be why.

Battery & AC
I wasn't expecting much here and was not disappointed. A little over a couple hours with regular usage. It won't leave home much. It's not a huge issue for me.

Heat & Noise
The AMD CPU in junction with the Radeon 3450 card, which I didn't even want, would make a good companion on a cold night. All kidding aside, it does run pretty warm, definitely runs a lot warmer than my ThinkPad. I wouldn't use it without pants or other cover. I'll probably be looking for ways to cut down on that once I get everything else figured. This is another area of concern for the long term viability of the notebook with all the heat. The fan is on often and seemed fairly noisy, in both XP and Vista. I know the site's review said otherwise, but that was my experience.

Ports & Connections
Lots of ports and connections, more than I'll use. It even has a card reader, which as a long time ThinkPad user, I've never known. It also comes with a remote that slides conveniently into the card slot. I'll probably never use it, but thought it worth a mention.

Sound
Sound is decent, not great. It's not near as good as the dv5000 I got to review a few years back. It's certainly good enough for a movie or a few tunes. It sounds a little better than my ThinkPad, probably cause my ThinkPad has such poor speaker placement.

Software
The dv5z comes with Vista, Home Premium or Ultimate. Bloatware was pretty usual. I spent a bit cleaning it out, which seemed to help some. I ran Vista for about six months on my ThinkPad, just for shoots and giggles. It's alright, but XP is faster and Vista has it's annoying quirks like the slow Windows refresh. I set about to install XP on my new dv5z. Unfortunately, HP does not make this easy, which I can't understand. They could offer XP drivers and say they don't support it. It would make a lot of their customers happy and wouldn't cost them much, having the best of both worlds wouldn't you say? I set about the finding a notebook who's drivers I could borrow to serve as XP replacements. The HP Business Notebook, the 6735b seemed the most likely candidate, being it's offered with the AMD setup as well. If you're on the Intel side, the 6730 would seem like a good bet.

The key to getting it installed is slipstreaming the 6735b's XP AHCI driver into the XP disc along with service pack two using nLite if you haven't already. After doing that it installs quite nicely. There's a good post here in the HP forums with links to a lot of the drivers, which unfortunately I found after finding most of the drivers myself.

If you have the 3450 card, you can use the XP driver for the 6930p. It doesn't give you the control panel and you have to install it manually, but the driver works, I tried the one from ATI's site, but it gave me errors. After finishing installing in all, I had two devices left I couldn't install. The IR Receiver. I don't really care about the thing cause I doubt I'll use it, but for completeness sake it'd be nice you know? That's how I found the HP forums when I was looking for the IR driver. The one listed didn't work for me. I also have two Audio devices installed. They seemed to be the same, but using the same driver only one installed. It keeps popping up when you log on, which is annoying but doesn't seem to effect the sound cause it works. Hopefully someone else, if not me, will keep working on this so we can get it sorted out. I'd run Linux on the thing, but it's extremely difficult to watch Blu-Rays in Linux. I'd basically have to throw it out.

Conclusion
So there you have, my first fun filled days with the dv5z. It's got a lot of good points. The heat and the touchpad are areas of concern for me. I'm not sure whether I'll keep it, but have to do some more work on it to see if I can keep a lid on the heat and decide whether I can suffer the touchapd buttons.

Pros & Cons
Pros
Decent Quality
Phenomenal Glossy Screen
Good Performance
Ports Aplenty
Reasonably Price with Coupons and Fast Shipping
Blu-Ray Looks Oh So Good

Cons
Horrid Touchpad Buttons
Lights Ringing the Keyboard
Could Serve as a Furnace
Did I Mention I Don't Care for Vista?

 

Hi ZaZ how are you doing?

I want to know how I can slipstreaming the 6735b's XP AHCI driver with nLites in winxp pro sp2 32bit?

I download the 6735b's XP AHCI driver from hp website, and when I try to slipstreaming the driver with nListes opciones only recognizes me the files ahcix64.inf and ahcix84.inf to apply and not the others files.

thanks now.

 

does your brightness controls (fn > f7/f8) work?

 

Doing well, thanks for asking. I don't know what to tell you, it worked fine for me. I just extracted the drive to a folder, then let used nLite to browse for it at the appropriate place. It worked for me.

My brightness controls work.