Just bought my new Laptop

Hey everyone. My new laptop from HP just arrived at my house! (I'm dyin to get out of work right now) and I was wondering if you could share some opinions on whether it's a keeper or not. I mainly bought it because I don't spend much time at home, I love media (music, movies, pics) and I would like to use it for work and some mild gaming (I'm primarily a console gamer!)

SPECS: - HP Pavilion zd8000 Customizable NB
- Windows(R) XP Media Center Edition (W/ dual tv tuner/DVR and remote.)
- Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 640 w/HT Technology, 3.2GHz (640...ready for 64 bit apps)
- 17.0" WSXGA+ BrightView Wide Viewing (1680x1050)
- 1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM, 533MHz (2x512MB)
- 100 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
- LightScribe 8x DVD+/-RW&CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer
- 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster(TM)
- 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) X600
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
All together it came out to $1745 (I had some discounts
and a rebate.)

So what do you think?

 

Jac79, I hate to burst your bubble but if I were you this is what I would do. I would return this to HP before you even take it out of the box and have them send you back an HP DV4000 with the ATI x700 GPU. The only downfall you will see with this is that the DV4000 is 15.4" rather than 17". However, the zd8000 is just not good for a notebook I don't think for a couple of reasons. One, the Pentium 4 processor is just not a good idea for a notebook. This notebook will run extremely hot and will not be at all mobile with its weight. Secondly, the x600 gpu, while not terrible, is not nearly as good as the x700. On top of that you will save about $400 over an otherwise identically configured laptop with the DV4000. I really think you would be much happier with the DV4000. Good luck in whatever you choose to do!

 

And if you'd rather have the 17" screen than decent gaming, the new dv8000z would be a better choice. It runs cool, has a 64-bit Turion CPU, can be configured with two HDs (I went with the dual 80GB 5400RPM option), the power brick is amazingly tiny for a 17" notebook... but it has a Radeon 200M GPU, which is quite a bit inferior to the X600. As a media machine it's unbeatable.

I'm surprised that the zd8000 is still being sold. I can only hope that HP is keeping it around as a placeholder while waiting for the Next Big Thing to come together.

 

Overall the specs are pretty awesome but I would suggest two improvements to those specs. First don't put a Pentium 4 in a notebook... ever... I used to have a Inspiron w/ a Pentium 4 but it died in a year... as it ran extremely hot.

Second I would suggest getting less RAM then buying more memory aftermarket or at least 1 512 DIMM instead of 2 256 DIMMs cause when you start upgarding your ram those two 256s will basically be useless.

 

Awesome! Congrats, I have mine for 8 months already, not one problem but I did want it clean so I wrote zeroes and formatted and it runs great, I love it, powerful as shht, running an external tv/fm tuner, browsing the internet and a virus scan at the same time runs good, and it all fits on the huge screen. Not as much ram neither, only 512, p4 2.8 800mhz fsb, bluetooth, wireless b/g 60gb hdd. I don't use it as much as a pc though, but I travel with it and have no complaints just buy another battery for it cause it does suck it up.

 

You are going to lower the ratio/ frequency in BIOS to make your P4M survive. My old lappy was very hot until I lower it from 1.8GHZ to 1.3 GHZ

 

Hey everyone. Just an update.

PROS: I love my new lappy. it's super fast and does not give up on anything. Multimedia is amazing on this machine and I think I'm in love with media center! lol!
all in all, I've played call of duty with max specs for the first time! I played half-life 2 (can't put max specs but it looks and play's amazing!) I tried to play the Fear demo but I had to put specs on medium or less to get it playing perfect.
Burning dvds is fast, light scribe is fun. I can record all my shows while im out.

CONS: yea...it gets hot on the top left vent. also, it gets warm
on the right side of the touchpad (not enough that it bothers me. I bought a wireless mouse anyway.)

Other than that, it does everything I wanted it to and it is the perfect desktop replacement for me. Hopefully it will last for a long time.

 

Well good for you..We all have our own different taste. I have an old Compaq Presario R3000 AMD3000+ 64 1.8 ghz and i like it better than my new Compaq Presario v4000 PentiumM which i think is more powerful than my old one and weights less hehe

 

I almost got the ZD but found that it's got a Prescott in it.
I know how hot those can get on a desktop let alone on a laptop.
Good luck with your lappy and hope you enjoy it for a long, long time.
I'm pretty satisfy with my DV as it run very cool. I don't play games so couldn't tell you how it does on it.
Happy multi-tasking with your HT....

 

Congrats. Glad to hear that you new machine suits you well.