V2000Z Power Meter

I'm having a problem on my presario and I need another V2000Z owner to verify what tech support is telling me. Here's the scenario:

I just got my V2000Z last week (excellent deal @ $357, I absolutely love it). But while on battery power, the Power Meter (WinXP Home SP2) is not displaying the "total time remaining" estimate that I notice in every other modern notebook.

So I went to Compaq tech support. 1 chat session and 4 emails later (going through all sorts of troubleshooting steps), I got no solution (but the steps were on target- I reinstalled power management, cleared bios settings, changed power management settings, etc...). Finally an email comes in saying that "This feature is not available in latest HP notebooks."

Can someone that has a v2000z verify this for me? Thanks.

 

v2000z does not have a battery time estimate. this is not a bug, but a feature missing.

 

Thanks e-squared!

 

Where did you buy it for $357, and what are the specs?

 

as far as I know, no HP laptop for the last year and a half has had such a meter.

 

I got it last week from HPShopping (CTO) and used APP to buy it (gave me something like 14% off). Came with a free F380 3-in-1 printer. Both the notebook and the printer are low end but still very nice. In all, I saved something like 52% off.

They stopped offering the $100 rebate and the $80 rebate on the printer and the $200 instant savings on CTO, so the price is a little more expensive now- but there's still a $100 instant savings available. It should drop again after Christmas if they don't come out with another model to replace it. The v2000z has been out for a while now.

Specs:

Compaq Presario V2000Z
-Mobile Sempron 3100+ (1.8GHz, 256KB L2 Cache, 62W, s754)
-14" 1280x768 Widescreen
-Radeon Xpress 200M (i'm actually impressed with it for being integrated)
-256MB PC2700 RAM
-Broadcom 802.11b/g
-40GB 4200RPM
-CDRW/DVD Combo
-6 cell (~3 hours)
-5.4lbs

I'm very impressed. Sempron-M with ATI integrated graphics makes a killer budget system. I'm positive if I replace the current ram with a 512MB PC3200 cas2.5 stick, performance will be even better.

If you can get it for under $400, I definately recommend it. Just make sure you opt for a model with integrated wireless, or else you wont get a wireless switch on the bezel. But everything else, go for stock. Upgrades will really tally up and before long, you will have configured a stock-mid-range-priced system based on a low-end platform.

My only gripes:

1) CD/DVD Bezel is poorly engineered.
2) Doesn't come with an OEM cd, so reinstalling without bloatware is a pain.
3) No battery time estimate.
4) Slow and little stock ram.

But everything else has exceeded my expectations.

 

Sorry last question, how long does the battery last, and have you tried any games?