Is this HP zv6000 a good value?

Hi. I've been shopping around for a new laptop and ran into this HP zv6000 and it looked pretty nice to me. These are the specs:

OS: Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3800+ (2.4GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
Display: 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen
Graphics Card: 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM)
Memory: 1.0GB DDR SDRAM (2x512MB)
Hard Drive: 100 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
Primary: CD/DVD Drive DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
Networking: 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/125HSM/SpeedBooster
Primary Battery: 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
This model also has TV Out S-Video; something I can't seem to find on a lot of laptops but I'd really like to have this feature.

I'd be able to get this for around $1570 so I was wondering if this was a good deal for the money? I also plan to do some gaming with the comp so I was wondering if this system would be capable of playing some of the newer games like Half Life 2 fine? I understand this isn't the best video card for a laptop but I mainly do my gaming on consoles and was hoping this would play some of the newer PC games decently.

Another thing I noticed on the hp site was that this laptop weighs about 8lbs. I was wondering if I there are some other laptops on the market that could give me similar performance to this model but weigh a bit less (say around 6lbs or so)? If so, how much cash would one of those run?

I know those are quite a few questions but any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. [ ]

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Victin878

 

Check out Office Depot,
http://www.techdepot.com/pro/btoconfig.asp?=517&s=BTO4204468&v=40&u=1
If you order in store, you'll get $200 rebate, ends today


.

 

whether or not it'll play the newer games is tricky. it's been reported that doom3 got 10fps, but then again, it is a very demanding game. there aren't many reviews with this laptop's connection to games since not many people have received theirs. however, i purchased mine and am staying somewhat optomistic about it running less demanding online first person shooters like counterstrike and wolfenstein ET.

 

If you dont play demanding games ie. Doom3,halflife2,either Prince of Persia then this is a great notebook if you do plan on playing these then this in not the notebook for you.

 

What about playing games like Rome Total War?

 

I play Rome: Total War with my ZV5220US and it only has a 32mb NVidia card...of course, you can't have more than 10,000 soldiers on the battlefield and have it run smoothly. But I've pushed it to around 8,000 soldiers (total for both sides) with the rest of the settings at about medium and it ran as smoothly and cleanly as it can...So I would imagine with the ZV6000's 128mb dedicated graphics card it can do at least 20,000 soldiers easily. I'm still waiting for mine from Costco and believe it or not, one of the reasons I'm buying it is because of RTW....seeing a battle in an epic scale is just an awesome experience!!

 

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