Pavilion zv5000t questions AND suggestions

Boy am I glad I found this site! I'm looking into buying an HP notebook and had no idea about the student discount nor the coupon code at coupon mountain! Both will help me out tremendously!

Anyways, yea so I'm heading off to college next year and looking for the right PC for me, and one that won't burn a hole in my wallet. I'm not really a gamer at all, but I'm still looking for a pretty fast notebook for internet and downloading music and all that good stuff. The one HP I'm particularly interested in is the zv5000t, esp. with the attractive "Laptop Best Buy" across it's screen on the website. Some questions:

1. For people who have this one, what do you think of it? Have you come across any problems with it?

2. Does it really make a HUGE difference in performance and speed if I choose a Celeron instead of a Pentium 4? Is the AMD Athlon for the zv5000z better?

3. I plan on getting this home recording software/hardware to use on this laptop and it requires a 7200rpm hard drive, which is obviously not offered on any HP products. I know about the Hitachi Travelstar e7k60 and am thinking about getting it, and once I get the computer I figure I could swap the HD's before I do anything else. But first I need some input on - will it be compatible? warranty issues? is it easy to install? is there any web site w/ CLEAR instructions on how to replace a notebook HD?

4. My campus is not wireless, so does it make sense to go with the 802.11 b/g wireless LAN option? Or should I just save money and go with the basic 10/100 LAN and modem? I don't see myself creating a wireless network or anything, I don't really know much about it, would it be useful at all for the future?


You gain some knowledge, you pass some knowledge:

Here are a few things that I found out can save you some serious dough. The main idea is EBAY = save. For some of the HP and Compaq models, you know that really attractive expansion base that you can pay $200 extra (w/ rebate, $250 w/out) and include with your order? Well check out ebay, and you'll find brand new ones, exact same product w/ all the same features, for 100 bucks! Same with printers. I see printers that are $100 off the HP site, exact same go on ebay for $30 or $40 (brand new!). And new USB printer cables for 1 dollar on Ebay, otherwise $20 on the website. Oh and the Hitachi Travelstar I mentioned earlier....$260 retail, $150 ebay. When it comes to essential computer accessories, instead of claiming, 'oh it's so much easier if you just make one big order w/ your comp and all the accessories you need off the manufacturers website,' I'm saving me some money and going EBAY. You should too.

 

Celerons are evil, P4's are tolerable, Athlon 64's are the best. Since you don't require a state-of-the-art graphics chip the zv5000z would be a very good choice for you, and it's low-end dedicated graphics chip is better than any integrated graphics solution (like the zv5000t has) anyhow.

I swapped a Hitachi 7200RPM drive into my zv5000z, you just open the hatch (two screws), remove the adaptor on the old drive's IDE connector, plug it into the new drive, drop the new drive in (carefully!), close the hatch, and you're ready to reinstall the OS/etc from the included CDs. newegg.com and mwave.com are two places to check for those drives. It makes a HUGE performence difference. Buy your USB cable and whatever else from them while you're at it.

Get wireless, because HP rigged their BIOS to reject non-HP cards and that makes adding it later much more difficult than it ought to be. Get Bluetooth too if it's not too expensive, that'll let you use Bluetooth wireless mice without an external transmitter (works for me), sync with some of the higher-end PDAs and cell phones (which I don't have), etc.

Also definitely get the 12-cell battery option and 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 res screen option... well, I like the higher-res screens anyhow [ ].

64-bit Fedora Core 2 Linux is compatible, except for wireless, if you're into that. I can play 64-bit UT2004 on mine, though only at 800x600 res due to the weak graphics chip (higher res will really hurt framerate).

 

Thanks SO much for your advice brianstretch! You've helped me out a ton! Anyone else with comments/suggestions feel free. THanks!