HP zv5000z INFO?

Office depot has a sale for $600 after rebates.

$899 - $50 hp rebate - $125 Notebook rebate - $125 office depot rebate.

BUILD-YOUR-OWN
HP Pavilion zv5000z w/ AMD Athlon XP-M 2800+

256mb ram
30GB 4200 RPM
DVD-Rom/CD-RW
Windows XP-HOME
15''

It doesn't give any other info other than that.
I am under a budget & thinking about purchasing this laptop.
Pro's/Con's for his price w/ this setup. General experience on this laptop?

I know its not that powerful but for the price how is it?

ANY UPGRADES I SHOULD THINK ABOUT GETTING(NOT TOO EXPENSIVE)?

 

i'd suggest more RAM, and maybe a bigger HD, faster processor, etc. if u configure it online. What do u plan on using it for?

 

I plan on using it for programming, Surfing net, word processing, minor gaming...mostly school related. Some dvd viewing. mostly going to be connected to a cord in lab/classroom/home.

I just got back from OfficeDepot.

SPECS: w/ upgrades that i wanted

HP Pavilion zv5000z Athlon XP-M 3000+
15.4'' WXGA ( 1280 x 800)
512 MB DDR SDRAM (2x256MB)
Microsoft Windows XP HOME
30 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive -
DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
64 MB NVIDIA GeForce 4 440 Go
Built in 56k + 10/100 Lan
12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Microsoft Works/Money
________________________________

$1079 + $35 shipping = $1114 - $125 rebate (Office Depot) - $125 Rebate(AMD)- $50 rebate (HP) = $814 + tax on $1079(around $90)

30 GB RAM is enough for me for next 1 or 2 years. I will upgrade later with faster hard drive, all they have are 4200rpm hard drive upgrades anyways.

Is this a hot deal?
I am thinking about also upgrading from 15.4" WXGA (1280x800) to 15.4" WVA WSXGA+ (1680x1050) for $37. Is this worth it. What are the main differences other than resolution. Can you tell the difference?
Anything else i should upgrade or degrade?
THANKS!

 

the updated specs are fine, u can go with the Better resolution if u dont mind small Icons.

 

Definitely get the 1680x1050 screen. Get the Athlon 64 3000+ if you can afford it, though that particular XP-M should have Enhanced Virus Protection too. You didn't mention wireless, get 802.11b/g and Bluetooth (they'll be expensive/difficult to add later). Agree on everything else, especially the HD.

All in all, amazing price assuming Office Depot delivers all the rebates.

 

sorry to go a bit OT
is office depot configuring manually better deal than hpshopping.com?
if so how and what do i do for it?
thanks
shr30

Acer Ferrari: I WISH!
singapore vs usa??

 

Ya, hpshopping has it for around..$1049 for exact setup.

I am getting it from office depot for $815 shipping included. You have to pay tax ..around $90.
Not bad for all the goodies i stuck in it.

Aside from the hard drive, decent processor for me. Good buy.
Atleast its not a celeron. But its at celeron price.

Best bang for the buck i think.

All you have to do is go to their store, they have a flyer with a special on zv5000v laptops.
You can customize to your liking. Note, some upgrades are cheaper w/ office depot.

like the 15.4 wxga to 15.4''wsxga is $37 rather than $50.
There are other cheaper upgrades aswell.

link to flyer
http://ofc.rsc01.net/servlet/website/ResponseForm?hMJEuhg0hiWT.25VTyvw

 

hey Fusionacid,
i meant, is OD better for ALL hp shopping purchases since i will probably get a zt3000 or a amd64 chip lappie
thanks
shr30

Acer Ferrari: I WISH!
singapore vs usa??

 

ya check it out..they "MIGHT" go to office depot. tell them that you want that laptop and go to their tech guy and ask him to help you on the kiosk. Their upgrades and costs are alittle better in price than hpshopping(sometimes). Not sure on overall w/ tax,shipping all that stuff. Best thing to do is go there when you get time and get a print out the specs you want, then compare it to the ones you are getting from hpshopping.

 

I recently purchased one of them zv5000z's from HPshopping.com, but that Office Depot deal is lookin good - $350 in rebates. But I'm down here in South Florida, and Hurricane Frances is doing her thing, so all the Office Depot stores been closed since Friday. Yall think that if I go to OD on Tues., they'll give me a raincheck or something, since I wasn't able to take advantage of the sale?

 

no idea bro. Tell them this wasn't a raincheck, more like a super stormcheck. I would go to them in person and speak to the manager rather than on phone. I think they would deny it because of office depot rebates and hp rebates. you have to have to boughten it within these past 3 days or else the rebate isn't valid. So that means office depot has to clear it and hp has to clear the rebates which will be tough.
goodluck.

 

Yeah, I went up to Office Depot this morning, and sure enough, they denied it. They understood the situation, but like u said Fusion, they could only honor the sale/rebates if the comp. was purchased during the 3 days. Ah well.........

Do yall know of any similar sales goin on for the Build-Your-Own zv5000z, cause I looked everywhere. That OD deal was the best I seen.

 

Hi,

I just bought the HP Pavilion zv5000z w AMD 64 (3400 + 2.20), 15.4 WVA WUXGA (1920x1200), 64 mb nvidia, 1 gig of ram (2 512's), a 40 GB HD, 2XDVD+, high speed wireless 54g 802.11b/g blablabla,and a 12 clee lith ion battery. I got this for 1620 plus tax, then minus the 300 rebate. So I basically paid 1325 plus tax! I think I got a good deal, I wanted more ram memory, more screen resolution, but I think 40 GB hard drive is enough. I hope its enough!

What do you all think?

amelia

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Fusionacid

 

Looks like an excellent configuration to me. If you're up to it you might want to swap in a Hitachi 7200RPM HD, otherwise you've got everything.

 

I still don't like the fact that HP does not offer top of the line GPUs for their AMD series notebooks.

 

Office Depot's "Tech Depot" seems to have better prices than HPShopping:

http://www.techdepot.com/btoselect.asp?l=1&u=1&c=Z03051&v=40

 

Yeah. Especially since HP made the previously bargain-basement ze4000 series a Pentium M series and increased the prices along the lines.

 

Can this laptop use the Hitachi drive? I have the stupid toy Compaq R3240 version and it uses a completely obscsure hard drive interface. I bought that hard drive I cannot use it(for more information and my a list of my formal complaints about the R3240 you may email me at [email protected]).

The zv5000z is the professional model of the hobbyist R3000. Thus can it use standard hard drives? Stanard DVD drives? The R3000 has that stupid rounded case thus you can't really do much with it. I would like to put a nice lite-on drive in my zv5000z. Does this seem possible?

 

Is there somewhere to download the AMD rebate? I didn't see mention of it from the link to their site. Is it only good in conjunction with the Office Depot offer, or is AMD giving the rebate any HP Notebook with an AMD CPU?


Cheers,

Stevo

zv5000z: Ath64_3200+ (2.0GHz) - 1GB DDR - 80GB 5400rpm - 64MB 440 - 15.0" XGA - Win2k (tentatively)

 

there are 2 office depot rebates for $125 each and an hp rebate for $100. If u need the PDA versions...let me know.

 

I have some serious questions about this laptop. I have long documented conversations with Compaq's "customer service" which will clearly explain their high level of incompetence. I had to at many points tell them how to fix some of their problems(for example, they supply a ~40MB support package which implements a very serious bug into the dis play). They could not understand the problems and didn't even know what the chipset was. They also didn't know what level 2 support what. Literally. Thus, I shall not question their support, but I can tell you all about it.

Because I design my own software systems and I built my own custom XP Pro I was able to fix all software problems by relentlessly researching who made each part of the PC...and lots of trial and error. The laptop which I had these particular experienced with is the R3240, a laptop I cannot recommend to anyone. Thus, why I am asking about the zv5000z(the professional model of the hobbist R3240).

Each of these questions are NO on my current R3240, which is going to soon thrown at ebay.

1) Can you install a different hard drive? The Compaq R3240 does NOT use the standard interface wihch 2.5" hard drives use. They use a type of "pop in" method instead of pins. I would like to put my 60GB Hitachi 7200RPM in there.

2) Is the DVD/CD drive flat, thus replaceable? The Compaq R3240 is rounded and thus is completely inpossible to replace with a respectable Lite-On model.

Thank you for any feedback you provide. I will be interested to compare your answers with the answers Compaq/HP will be providing if and when they give me the time of day.

For more information on my experienced with HP/Compaq, please e-mail me directly at [email protected]. It's very scary how they work.

 

Hello again quantum00:

Your R3240 is just a preconfigured R3000z.

1) Pull the plastic adaptor off your old HD, put it on your new HD, reassemble. Many of us have swapped in Hitachi 7200RPM HDs.

2) HP uses standard optical drives with very nonstandard bezels. If you don't mind the bezel not lining up (and I think a standard flat bezel is an improvement), swapping in a new drive is trivial. See my Ultradrives thread. Also, newegg.com has Panasonic 4X slot-load DVD burners that look really neat. I swapped a Toshiba 4X tray-load drive into my zv5000z (same guts as the R3000z, different case).

Yes, HP support needs a LOT more training (both American and Indian), but if you look around here you'll find answers to pretty much any laptop support question you have.

 

Actually...what is the DVD drive in the zv5000? Is there a 2x read throttle? My old ZE5400 did. You could never go path 2x read. Obviously this is useless for video processing. I've seen my R3240 put 3.5x though...actually it had to have been faster than that. I know...I actually I said something good about my laptop. I'm shocked too.

 

Thanks for the response. I will look into this on my current R3000. I still would like flat everything and this 1680 resolution is insane for my eyes, so I think I will dig myself another grave: customizing a laptop at hpshopping.com. That zv5000 seems so much nicer. I can't believe I didn't see that before. Also that no payments thing looks tempting...but I know there is a catch. That's HP/Compaqs motto.

 

You all may find this interesting...

Original Post(the problem):

I have the R3240US and I got it from best buy. The screen is 1680x1050. Like all stupid LCD monitors you can't change that. If you do a lower resolution its all fuzzy and nasty. **I cannot see this screen at 1680x1050**. Today I went to another comptuer store and saw one with 1280x800. It was also a R3240US. You would think they would change the model number.

What is going on here? Did someone figure out a way to hack the LCD monitor to actually be viewable or are they trying to confuse us with weird numberings.

I'm bordering on taking a loss and having a CTO from hpshopping.com(of course I would tweak that baby to the moon!), because I soooo can't see my screen.

------------------------------------------------------------
Second Post(the answer:

As I say I noticed that the R3240US models on display were all 1200 resolution. So, today I went to check another store. They didn't hack their laptops! The R3240US is 1200 resolution! The specs say it, the display says it, and the display IS it.

So why does my R3240US have the useless 1600 resolution? Compaq put the wrong screen on. Best guy was of course skeptical at first but when they saw the 1600 resolution they were as astonished at I was.

After minimal fighting(you cant go to Best Buy with out some fighting) they told me to go to another store to get it(the other store had it in stock). After an hour in the store where a half of it was waiting for the manager to come back who apparently had forgotten about me(yes I stood there waiting AFTER he "helped me" for 30 minutes minimum at one time), he finally had someone give me a new laptop.

So...that's the problem. It was just that someone at Compaq put the wrong screen on. I got the special one.