Pretty Good Value ... except power jack breaks off
Written: Oct 18 '05
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Pros: Generally a good value; decent customer support overall; pretty good workhorse.
Cons: Power jack breaks; no WinXP CD; some other shoddy parts; short battery life.
The Bottom Line: Recommend reluctantly.
Decent laptop; pretty good customer service. But some shoddy components and short battery life make me somewhat reluctant. If you get it, treat it gingerly.
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| jbnyc's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Pavilion ze1210 (F5398H) PC Notebo... |
This laptop has been pretty good, except after about 2 years, the power jack (where you plug the adapter into the PC) started coming loose and eventually broke off. This is evidently a fairly common HP design flaw [see http://www.thisisbroken.com/b/2004/03/compaq_laptop_p.html], and it makes the laptop effectively inoperable until it gets fixed (cost me $100 in NYC).
Just wanted to get that out of the way, because that is the only MAJOR problem I've had with it. The latch that closes it also broke but that's not a big deal as I usually keep it in a case. Also, of note, it does NOT come with a Windows XP recovery CD, so I had to borrow one from a neighbor with a Dell (they DO include them). Other more minor issues include short battery life, from 100% to 0% in about 90 minutes, though I think it was closer to 2-2.5 hours when it was new. And, yes, I suppose it does get hot, but that's kind of nice on a cold winter night (LOL).
Now that it's been a couple months since I had the power jack repaired (seems much sturdier now than ever), my annoyance has faded, and I suppose I'd reluctantly recommend this unit.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1600 approx Operating System: Windows Processor: AMD Athlon (K7) Processor speed: Don''t Know Screen Size: 14 inches RAM: 256 Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID: jbnyc
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Reviews written: 3
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