My HP dv5030z

Hi All,
Just thought I'd put together some thoughts on the dv5030. First let me say that this is the first laptop I have purchased. I have played with many and also have setup a system that used NEC mobilepro 780s for field personel. I will start with the what do I like. This particular machine is equipped with a Turion ML 37 cpu. It is a 64 bit 2 gig processor and can haul when needed. It spends most of its time running at lower speeds. The load scaler (throttle up) function works very well I have had only one occasion where the machine seemed to bog down and I have good reason to believe that on that occasion there were external conditions that caused it.
The screen on this laptop is awesome! It is so clear that it makes my desktop look washed out even though the desktop has a very good monitor.
The wireless is also very good. It is the HP wireless with speedboost and it is generally very good about finding the network and connecting.
The heat from this machine is not bad. The fan is quiet and only comes on breifly. The 100 gig hdd is great! I like not having to worry a whole lot about how much space is left etc that goes along with smaller discs.
This machine is fairly solid. With a 15.4 inch screen there is a small amount of flex, but the screen stays fairly solid while typing. There has been much talk about the brightness of some HP screens. I cannot speak for others but I can say that this screen is excellent.
The Lightscribe DVD burner is a nice touch. it easily burns cd, dvd, and Lightscribe disks. While the lightscribe is nice, the media that can be Lightscribed is expensive. So I classify this particular feature as a fun toy but not a deal maker or breaker.
Lastly this machine has all kinds of ports and connectors on it. It has a 1394 Firewirre, 3 USB 2 ports, VGA port, S-Video port, expansion card slot, port replicator port, digital media card reader.

Now on to the bad.
First and foremost, the graphics on this machine could be alot better! This laptop is a powerhouse and is capable of excellent performance, unfortunatly the ATI Xpress 200m, while not being exactly a whimp is definetely up to the task of keeping up with this machine.
The second thing that could have been done, luckily this one is user correctable for those who would endeavor to do so, is that the hdd is 4200 rpm varety.
Finally the last thing is that with a 6 cell battery this machine will run slightly over 2 hour on a charge. This machine should really have been equipped wth a 12 cell battery.

The numbers.
After running 3DMark 2003 on numerous occassions this machine pulls a consistant score of 1525-1535. While there are other tests out there such as Super pi which calculated to 2 million places in 1 minute 50 seconds, 3DMark shows the overall picture.

The results.
I am very pleased with this machine and feel I got my money's worth. It pains me try to understand why HP did not make two flavors, this one and a more robust machine with a better graphics card and a higher rpm hdd, say a dv5030z and a dv5030z1. It is my opinion that having done this would have taken this laptop from an also ran (no that this is necessarily a bad thing), to a top contender.

Finally in closing I will say that if you are considering this comptuer go down to the local Circuit City or Best Buy and try one on. If you like, and not everybody will, then you found a good solid buy, if not then keep searching. there is a machine out there that will fit just about everybody's wants and needs. As in all things, the answer comes in finding what fills that balance for you. For an overall good computer with alot of features and a good size hdd, and memory I feel that I can rcommend this machine with a clear conscience.

 

I'm glad you like your new computer. It seems that the impression one gets from the screen depends a great deal on one's expectations. A lot of people complained about the screens of dv5000, v5000z but I think the real reason is that they did not know what to expect from a notebook screen.
As for the graphics card, well, AMD has only a small percentage of the total notebook market share so probably this is a good reason for HP not to put an expensive GPU in a notebook, which may not sell well.
What kind of battery do you have. Is it the 4.4 or the 4.0 Ahr version? You should be able to go for 2.5 hours with the 4.0 version and some 20 more min with the larger one. Undervolting helps.

 

Hi Vassil,
I Really don't know which battery it is. It is the standard battery for this model. I would have purchased the 12 cell if I had ordered it on-line.Instead I bought it at a retailer. I am not unhappy with the battery life. I just will purchase the 12 celll in the future and keep both batteries. That will give a run time of aprox. 7 hours.

As I stated in the first post though, this machine should really have been equipped with the 12 cell from the get go. If you are going to produce a mainstream laptop with all the multi-media features you need to give the machine a long enough battery life to make those features usable. 2 hours gives just about enough time to watch one movie on dvd. kind of defeats the portability thing.