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"An almost Perfect Laptop!" on by jwhaddock
Pros: Provides all the multimedia you need. The only major player with a 10-key built in! HUGE screen! Awesomely fast!
Cons: Way too short battery life! No Nubbin Mouse.
Summary: This baby does it all. Upgrade your the hard drive and the graphics card and you will be singing it's praises. I have always been an IBM or Dell guy and this has by far been my favorite laptop purchase. HP has hit a home-run by giving you a 17" screen and in integrated 10-key. Functional layout is very workable. The only significant drawback is the battery life. You will need to have a spare or two for an average flight or get a battery pad to mount on the bottom. I have seen comments about the heat but I don't buy it. When upgraded, there are 3 cooling fans on the bottom and a heat vent out the side. It definitely does not get hot on your lap for extended periods of time. I highly recommend this product to sales and marketing executives who want a nice tool for home, office and road use. Integrated Remote Control is a very nice touch as well!
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"Quite a notebook" on by TechGeek01
Pros: 17" Screen, Full Size Keyboard, TV Tuner, Ports, Ports, and More Ports
Cons: Battery Life
Summary: I have read about all the reviews that people have posted here and I came to one conclusion, most all the negative feedback displayed here has to do more with HP's service rather than the product. Now I have owned two Gateway laptops and a Dell Pocket PC, and I must say that their service had their moments too. But that did not take away or add too the quality of their products.
Like most, I had to wait a really long time (a little over a month) for my notebook. But I figured with the money I saved by customizing my notebook, it was well worth the wait. The notebook I customized is almost the caliber of the zd8080us. Noticeable downgrades to my system was 1GB of ram scaled down to 512MB, and the P4 I choose was the 3.2GHZ over the 3.4GHZ. But the noticeable upgrades on the model I customized was screen resolution (1680 X 1050 as opposed to 1440 x 900) and the 5400RPM 100GB hard drive instead of the 4200RPM drive on the 8080. My customized laptop was just a few pennies over 2000, while an 8080 would have run me $2400 to $2600 depending on where I purchased it.
Now to the meat of the review. I have had the laptop a little over a week now, and I have to say that I love it. Now I know people have complained about the weight, the heat, and the battery life, but I will be quite honest....I only feel that the real gripe here is the battery life. I mean, I don't think that HP has ever tried to hide the fact that this thing is heavy, so if you want a notebook to lug around airports, then this one may not be the one for you. I carry my notebook everyday from work to the car, then the car to my apartment...no big deal. And as far as the heat goes, the old dinosaur notebook I upgraded from was a Gateway Solo 5350 with a 650MHZ PIII, and it gets much hotter than this notebook. But the most I have been able to squeeze out of the battery was about an hour and a half, that was just surfing the web. I played Halo on it about 30 minutes on a full charge, and the battery had about 50% charge left on it when I was through.
When I purchased this laptop, I wanted one that I could work and play on. I have run Unreal Tournament and Halo on it so far with no slowdown at all, even with programs running in the background. I hope to get a couple new games (hopefully Half-life 2 and Far Cry) to really push the card and see what it will do. I have a friend that has a 6 month old Alienware Area 51 notebook and this HP seems to run similar games a little faster than his. And I didn't have to pay $3500 for my notebook
And then there is the screen, there is only one word to describe it - BEAUTIFUL. That is the first thing that people at work notice when they walk into my office. It is a breath of fresh air to look at this screen when you compare it to my old notebook.
The Windows XP Media Center Edition seems to work flawlessly, but to be quite honest, I have only scratched the surface of what all the Media Center Edition can do. It would have been nice if HP would have put a DVI port on the external tuner.
All in all, I am very pleased with this notebook. I feel that it will be a while before I will have to upgrade again because I was able to get such a great notebook at such a great price. Notebooks I considered before deciding on this one: Dell XPS (too pricey), Dell 9200 (still too pricey), Toshiba Satellite P35-S629 (128MB ATI 9700 was the largest video card) and the Alienware Area 51 (too pricey still). -
"Awesome Laptop despite its disadvantages." on by Brandot222
Pros: Awesome screen, fullsized keyboard, great graphics
Cons: Weighs a lot and wont fit in most bags due to the sheer size of it.
Summary: A few things to say first off, i just got my HP ZD8000 on August 1st. Close to nine months after it originally came out. The fans i bareley even notice, not sure if this was a fix or what, since i had heard they were loud and obnoxious. Secondly the problem with the heat to the right of the touchpad. While it can get hot, when using it at full speed and stressing it, the only way you might notice is if your typing, which doesnt stress the machine at all. I found a nice little fix for the heat too, While i use it i just remove the battery. I dont really use it unless its plugged in, due to a short battery life and the sheer size of it. The screen is HUGE... The graphics in it are awesome, I am playing CounterStrike:Source and Half-Life 2 with full settings and recieving a average of 60-100FPS depending on the level.
After shopping around quite a bit this laptop emerged as the best value for its performance. My laptop came with 533MHz ram instead of the 400MHz that CNet Reviewed it at. My specs:
- HP Pavilion zd8000 Customizable NB
- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional for $29.99
- Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 630 w/HT Technology, 3.0GHz
- 17.0" WXGA+ BrightView Wide Viewing (1440x900)
- 1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM, 533MHz (2x512MB)
- 80 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
- DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
- 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) X600
- 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster(TM)
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works/Money
Price came out to $1553 after rebates... -
"W O N D E R F U L M A C H I N E ! ! !" on by Deputy Dog
Pros: GREAT PERFORMANCE, PICTURE & VALUE
Cons: Fan noise cost it a 10 rating, but Nothing is perfect
Summary: In January I looked at what was available in a configurable cutting edge power house laptop and nothing could beat the HP. And even more HP did not rob you when you made your custom upgrades! HP built me a loaded super machine for less than $2100.
Delivery time from China was just under 2 weeks! I have had the machine for over 2 months and it performs superbly.
Everything, including the tuner, was easy to set up. Things have been by the book with no problems.
The keyboard is great, there are lots of connectors on 3 sides of the machine. And yes, there is an ExpressCard slot which is said to later replace the PC card slot in usage. A good document CD supplements the 2 manuals.
It is a joy to have TWO programs opened side by side on the fabulous 17" screen!
Okay, compared to my old Sony the power management system/software could be better. But again, Nothing is perfect.
If you want value and cutting edge power in a customizable easy to use desktop replacement go with the HP ZD8000. -
"Not Recommended" on by cat_herder
Pros: Nice screen
Cons: Everything else
Summary: I got this in December and have spent countless hours dealing with customer support.
First of all, like the review said, it is huge. Its heavy. It really is a desktop machine, not a tote-able laptop. However, one advantage is if the power goes out, you don't need a UPS.
The bad started the first day - there's a Wind DVD upgrade CD that is orange. It tells you to update it immediately. I did that and it caused the CD drive to stop working. I had to call customer support and have some guy guide me through editing the registry entries.
The machine itself is a power hog. It lasted 20 minutes on battery power. I had to wade through a lot of online help to find out how to tweak it to run off battery for more than 20 minutes. It lasts about 45 minutes to an hour now, if I don't do CPU or disk intensive activities.
It runs extremely hot. Not a computer to use in the nude. The cats love it and I can keep my coffee warm on it. It runs so hot and the fans go so loudly, that I have taken to using a first aid cold pack from my fridge to shut it up.
A friend told me that the Pentium chip in the machine is inappropriate for a laptop/notebook. They should have used a Pentium mobility chip. This is probably why it is so hot. The chip is more suitable for a tower and not a notebook.
Customer support is dodgy. Do not use the online chat. It takes forever and you get support people who are clearly on the "B" team. Email? Forget it. Call them. Also, the time of day dictates who you get. If you have trouble, try to call during daylight hours in the US, else you get a very earnest 21 year old in Bangalore who is reading from a script and probably has been on the job for one week. The infrastructure is so bad that there is one customer support lady ("Debbie") whose staticky phone line makes her unintelligible. I got her several times and just make my regrets and redial. Shoot for a daytime call and keep calling until you get the Kentucky or British Columbia call sites.
The CD drive has already died. It died 2 months ago and I spent weeks repairing the mess the Bangalore folks put the OS into and getting my data off so I could wipe and reinstall the OS.
Currently, I am waiting for a new CD drive and the USB ports are unable to connect to an IPOD.
I thoroughly regret purchashing this computer and advise all and sundry to get an Apple or a Dell.
Never, ever, ever again, will I get an HP system again.
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