My First Laptop

Just broke down after many munths of deciding if, what, how much, etc., and bought my first laptop. Appreciated reading everyones input on all the different manufacturers and models (both positive and negative) I decided to go with HP for a few reasons, mostly because the website order process was very easy and uncomplicated and the have the best selection of AMD processors.

Heres my home pc:

Windows XP Professional
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
512 mb mem
200 GB maxtor
Lite-On 52x CD-RW
9200 ATI 128 mb

Laptop ( when it arrives)

HP Pavilion zv6000 customizable Notebook PC
– Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
– AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ (2.0GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
– FREE Upgrade to 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen!!
– 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM)
– FREE Upgrade to 512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256MB)!!!
– 40 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
– DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
– FREE Upgrade to 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM!!
– 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
– Microsoft(R) Works/Money


Final purchase price is $1013.00 - $50.00 rebate = $963.00

Input is appreciated.

 

Good choice. The zv6000 would make a nice DTR.
The only weak point I see is the 4200rpm HDD. Upgrading it is pretty easy and a 5400prm or a 7200rpm HDD will give you a good boost in performance.

 

I thought about that, but at the moment its not worth the extra 50 dollars to upgrade to the 60 gb to get the 5400. I kept the memory as is since it was doubled to 512 for free. I may play occational games on it (main reason for 128 dedicated mem) i HATE manufacturers twist of words with stating you have 512 memory and then shared memory. its a legal cheat to me.

 

The faster hard drive will give you a real boost of performance such as boot time for example. Do you purchase the zv6000 as a desktop replacement? If not, you may try some Turion or Pentium M based systems for slightly higher prices, e.g dv4000 for gaming.
As for better deals, if you customize the Compaq R4000 /zv6000's analogue/ it comes to $888 with the same configuration!
In another thread someone gave a link to www.costco.com where you can find a good l2000 refurbished /1.8ghz, 1mb chace, 80 gb 5400/ for $800! Not as good a GPU but still...


just a comment: I have a zv6000 at home and it's great - powerful and cool. At http://notebookanalysis.com/modules.php?name=Forums (ex- www.zv6000forums.com) you can find anything about this machine (and R4000,too).

 

It is the best $50 you spend on a laptop.

 

it really shouldn't use up that much more battery life using a faster HD. Only to get it started. Shouldn't be too diff. I am very happy I opted for the 80gb 5400 instead of the 100 4200.