warranty and battery questions

Hi, I'm thinking of buying a refurb'd zv5220us off of hp.com, but I have 2 questions...

One, I'm thinking of getting the Accidental Damage Protection, and I was reading the fine print (http://www.hpexpress-services.com/shop/pdf/epurwaccdam.pdf) and it says "Major parts replacement is limited to one each per year." Does that mean if I drop the computer and break the LCD and hard drive, that they will only replace one part? Or does they mean they will cover one entire incident per year, no matter how many parts need to be replaced?

Two, this computer comes standard with an 8-cell battery (non-customizable). How many hours can I expect this to last if I mostly just do web/word processing/DVDs? Is it worth $150 to buy an additional 12-cell?

thanks.

 

Don't the new AMD64's still require more power to run than the Centrino's? It's close, but still more. So the only advantage would be the extra computing power you get from the AMD64.

-Vb-

 

It means that each major component (systemboard, LCD, HDD, chassis) will be replaced once each year. So if you break the LCD & HDD, both will be replaced, but now you won't be able to replace the LCD or HDD until next year, but you still have the chassis & systemboard and other parts they list as a "major" component. Hope I didn't confuse you more.

A ZV5000 series notebook either has an Intel P4 or an AMD64 CPU, both generally consume a lot of battery power, but you may have a slight advantage with the AMD. You're probably looking at approx 1-2hrs at most. With the 12 cell, you can probably push it to 3hrs (max).

-Vb-

 

I get 3-4 hours with my zv5000z and a 12 cell. The Athlon 64 has way, way better power management than the P4. And the "Centrino killer" Athlon 64 thin-and-light notebooks are coming within the next few months, if that's what you're in the market for. (Hurry up HP! Spill the beans! What neat new toys do you have for us this new year?)

 

The current Athlon 64's do use more power than the Pentium-M CPU in the Centrino collection of chips, on average. The new 25W A64's that are coming out this quarter will match or beat the Pentium-M on power consumption and clobber it on performance.

If the choice is between the P4 and the Athlon 64, it's no contest, doubly so in the zv5000/R3000 series where the P4 versions are paired with shared memory graphics while the Athlon 64 versions get dedicated memory GPUs.

 

Thanks a lot for the help! I think I'll get this notebook (it has the AMD CPU) but may upgrade to the 12 cell.