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"Terrific Value" on by peco412
Pros: 13.3" 1280 x 800 LED Screen, Full Size Backlit Keyboard, Fingerprint Reader, Six Cell (55-Wh) Battery
Cons: Constantly Running Fan, Touchpad Gesture Zooming
Summary: I recently bought myself an HP HDX16t, which I like a lot. It replaced an almost five-year old HP dv1000. For my daughter, I just picked up an HP dv3z with an AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-86 (2.4 GHz), 3GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm), a 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection, a Slot Load Super Multi 8X DVD+/-R/RW w/Double Layer Support, a Webcam + Fingerprint Reader, a Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth, a Full Size Backlit Keyboard, and a Six Cell (55-Wh) Lithium Ion Battery. She runs some older 32-bit programs, so additional system memory and Vista-64 were not feasible options for us.
PROS: The system is plenty fast for my daughter's basic needs. I love the 13.3" screen size and absolutely love the full size backlit keyboard, which was not available when I ordered my HDX16t. The dv3z is also refreshingly light. The slot load optical drive is nicer than a tray loader. The fingerprint ready works well, although I think the one on my HDX16t works a little better. The performance on my 802.11.G nwireless network is fine. The battery life with the six-cell 55-Wh battery appears to be sufficient for at least one DVD movie on flights.
CONS: As I expected since I went with the ZM-86 processor, the fan runs constantly, although I am used to that after using my HDX16t for the past four months. We were unpleasantly surprised to discover that the touchpad recognizes gestures but is overly-sensitive to gestures that zoom browser pages (I still have to figure out how to fix it).
Overall, we like the dv3z a lot. I picked it up for only $724 before tax, with coupons on HP.com. This is an especially good value, especially compared to the MacBook I picked up for my son at the beginning of last summer for almost twice the price. I guess I sound like a Microsoft ad, but a good value is a good value. -
"Excellent value" on by PCmmm
Pros: Light weight, bright screen, good build quality
Cons: Runs hot and fan is on a lot.
Summary: First I purchased a Dell XPS 1330 with an LED screen but I had to send it back because it crashed on day 2. I came across the HP and bought it from HP.com. The HP dv3z is way better than I expected. It looks great and the DVD drive isn't noisy like the XPS. I was concerned about the AMD processor performance because reviews favor the Core 2 duo but I have not appreciated a practical difference. I surf the internet and watch movies on my PC. The LED screen is great. I recommend the backlit keyboard and slot load DVD.
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"Awesome small Notebook" on by azanderj
Pros: It's Light weight, attractive and performs well not to mention the low price. Holds up to 8gig's of ram.
Cons: Temperature, it run rather warm in vista with aero. The cpu (mine is a zm-82) runs warm any ways but I wonder what it's doing to all the other components.
Summary: I run Linux Mint 6 on mine and it's amazing with compiz. I have had no problems and am very happy with my DV3z.
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"For an "Entertainment" laptop, unimpressive!!" on by compgeek37
Pros: inexpensive, nice styling
Cons: My unit had very poor battery life, lasting just over two hours simply browsing the web, the AMD processor is slow, the cooling fan is quite loud, often ramping up even louder when multitasking, and the speakers are on the bottom of the unit!
Summary: I cannot recommend the HP dv3z! I was very disappointed in the overall performance. I had planned to use this as an all around business laptop but found it to be just too slow, the fan noise to be quite disconcerting, and the speakers to be of poor sound quality, sounding more like one mono speaker underneath the unit. It may be ok for someone on a tight budget who will only be mostly word processing or browsing the web but I don't believe this is the best that HP can do!
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