Please help me decide? ACER v. HP???

After several weeks of mind-numbing research, I've brought it down to two systems at the SAME price: $1375 (with rebates and promotions) for my PRIMARY home laptop.

The two competitors are:

#1
HP zt3000 custom
-1.7 Dothan 735 Centrino
-512 (1 dimm) RAM
-60 gig @ 5400 rpm hd
-ATI RADEON 9200 64mb video
-XP Home
-CD RW/DVD-ROM DR
-15.4 WXGA with BRITEVIEW option

#2
ACER Travelmate 4501
-1.5 Dothan 715 Centrino
-512 (2x256 dimm RAM)
-40 gig HD (presumably @ 4200)
-ATI RADEON 9700 64mb video
-XP Pro
-Dual DVD+-RW Drive
-15.4 WXGA TFT

I wanna finish this off tonight! Sound off, please!
Which do you think is the better overall deal, and better computer... Thanks!!!

Acers aren't too common in the US, so I can't test it out the way I was able to go check out HPs. I'm leaning towards the HP but the improved graphics card and DVD burner are nice lures for the Acer.

What do you think? THANKS FOR YOUR HONEST INPUT!

 

Hiya jephre,

This actually seems like a simple solution to me, unless the most important thing in your notebook requirements is pure video processing power: the HP zt3000 seems to be the way to go.
For actually getting most types of work done, it seems to have the Acer beat: 1.7 GHz vs. the Acer's 1.5; 1 DIMM for 512 instead of 2 (for future expandability); not only is the HP's HD 20 gigs bigger, but the 5400rpm is going to give you a 15-20% read/write bump over the Acer's 4200; I will stipulate that the Acer's included DVD writer is a nice bonus for the price, but you have to ask how many DVD's you are going to burn - I have an external DVD burner to use with my lappy, which also gives my the dual benefit of being able to go from master DVD directly to blank, without first copying to my HD, AND being able to burn DVDs from ANY machine, not just the laptop. So while it's definitely a question of the type of use you have in mind, it seems that in most cenarios, the HP will definitley handle the task at hand better than the Acer.
One added point of note - you may want to think about the number of trouble incidences that Acer notebooks have vs. those from HP. Just a thought.

I hope that is a bit helpful in your decision process - cheers,

Stevo


zv5000z: Ath64_3200+ (2.0GHz) - 1GB DDR - 80GB 5400rpm - 64MB 440 - 15.0" XGA - Win2k (tentatively)

 

stevo-
thanks for your post-- i've been leaning towards the HP for all the reasons you mentioned, but it's tough for me to get a sense of Acer's reputation for quality (or not, as the case may be)-- hence my post (i may have put it in one or two other threads as well

Thanks again!

 

Well, I just wanted to thank y'all-- I went for the zt3000. should arrive (with free shipping) sometime in 2007.

thanks for all your advice. i'll see you here when the drivers start-a failin!

jeffrey