Great Value!
Written: Oct 31 '02 (Updated May 25 '04)
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Pros: Jam packed with features. slick looking. Bright clear screen. Reliable.
Cons: 1024x768 resolution only. only one PCMCIA slot. BAD TECH SUPPORT.
The Bottom Line: It is very dependable and offer lots of value for the price. Definitely a great buy. However Tech Support is the worst I have ever seen. AVOID.
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| bertbert's Full Review: Hewlett Packard HP Pavilion Zt1170 (F3380H) PC Not... |
**** UPDATE 5/20/2004 ****
Keyboard went finally. Apparently I still have warrantly left. Anyway working Tech support has been a nightmare. After total of 7 calls to HP, 2 to FedEx to fix shipping address errors, 4 days of waiting for laptop pickup in vain thanks to no shows and shipping the unit to the wrong address after the laptop is fixed. HP/Compaq takes the cake for the WORST Customer Service I have ever experienced.
Well done HP, you just lost another loyal HP customer. No more HP, No more Compaq. I am buying a IBM thinkpad for my next laptop.
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**** UPDATE 2/21/2004 ****
2 years old but still running like new. The arrow keys did not work twice. All I had to do is blow using some compressed air duster (or my breath) and they work again. This is a very good quality and reliable laptop. But read the update on my review on COMPAQ presario latop. Tech support of this merged company is horrible. I will never buy from Compaq or HP ever again despite the good experience of this laptop.
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Got this laptop on sale at $1499 back in April. There is only one laptop i like more than this one and that was a T-series IBM Thinkpad.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Please use the HP eDiags software (comes pre-installed) to update the BIOS as soon as possible. The old BIOS severely limits the CPU processing speed. It originally clocks in at 733Mhz and after updating BIOS the machine speeds up substantially now clocking in at 1.13GHz as it should be.
What I like:
This baby (back in March 2002) gives the most value in power and features at a low low price. You already know most of the standard features from the information page. I will only highlight my most significant delights and complaints.
I especially like the way this laptop is designed. First, the laptop gave you an option to turn on the CDROM without turning on the PC. Remeber the time you shut down the system leaving a CD in the CDROM? You do not have to power up the system again - just turn on the CD on its own and remove the CD. Or better still, save power when you want to listen to the CD player but leave the system off.
HP also placed an additional USB port at the front left of the unit. The headphone jack is also located there making it extremely convenient for people on the go.
Oh did i mention you have the option to TURN OFF the touch pad? sometimes when i have an external mouse plugged in, and i am typing, my palm will accidentally brush the touch pad and create a mess on my document or source code. Well, the folks at HP actually built a small button to turn the touch pad off. It is a very nice touch and i use it a great deal.
LCD screen color, sharpness and brightness is by far one of the best i have seen in this price range. Even a compaq P-4m i bought recently for my brother pales in comparison.
Space, baby, SPACE! 30GB for you to play with!!!
What I like least:
LCD screen has a native resolution of 1024x768. In layman's terms, you are stuck at that resolution. Even if you like to go lower to 800x600 to make things look bigger, you can't. It will simply appear smaller with dark spaces around it. Called in to HP to lodge a complaint but from my experience this is a hardware issue. HP has chosen to lower the cost by putting in this screen (the costliest part of a laptop). I can live with 1024x768 for now because the screen is one of the sharpest and brightest i have seen in PCs in this price class.
The Video chipset is an older chipset but it suffices for my needs. I also do not really like the idea of shared memory. The fact it is shared means there needs to be overhead to manage and move information between the video chip and the main memory.
There is only one PCMCIA slot. With the evolution of USB, this has become less of an issue. I use it to drive my 802.11b wireless PC card. And with Ethernet and modem built in I don't really need more than one slot.
Reliability:
I owned this unit since March 2002 (8 months) and i have no problems with it. I use it a lot while on the road domestically and internationally. I use it for personal uses as well as my work machine at the consulting firm I run. I do word processing, spreadsheets and all the standard office stuff on it. I also do programming even running application servers (weblogic) on it when developing software. I also use it to do some image processing and flash animation.
This is a very dependable machine so far and is worth more than the 1500 bucks i paid for it.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 1499
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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Epinions.com ID:
bertbert
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Location: Shanghai, China
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 8 members
About Me:
There is no spoon.
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