The perfect all around computer for a college student on the go.
Written: Apr 01 '03
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Pros: Price, features, size, speakers, display
Cons: Running temperature, a little heavy, only one PCMCIA slot
The Bottom Line: Dollar for dollar this computer rivals desktops with similar features. The perfect buy for anyone on a budget needing a mobile computer.
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| wvabackpacker's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Pavilion ze4210 (DB953A) PC Notebo... |
The HP Pavilion ze4210 laptop computer.
~Price and availability-
The price on this laptop is the real kicker-$899. Available at your local Sam’s club. A membership will cost you $35 and is well worth the price for all the discounts. However, you can get this laptop at other online stores for around $999. http://www.hpshopping.com has it for $949 with a $100 mail in rebate 10/10 rating
~Features-
Windows XP Home Edition
Intel Celeron 1.60 gigahertz (ghz) Mobile Processor
256mb of 133mhz ram via one 256mb chips, standard SODIMM.
20GB 9.5mm Hard Disk. Despite all efforts, I couldn’t find the speed at which the hard drive operates and transfers data. My laptop was upgraded for Sam’s Club members to 30GB
14.1 inch viewable active matrix XGA Display
24x8 DVD-ROM Drive. Upgraded to a DVD-ROM/CD-RW Drive 24x8x8x8 for Sam’s Club Members
One Type II or Type III PCMCIA Cardbus slot
Five programmable quick launch buttons
Touchpad with scrolling feature
Built in NIC 10/100 mbs
Built in Modem v.90/v.92 56K
Two USB ports
Parallel port
Serial port
VGA Port
S-Video
PS2
Headphone/Speaker and Microphone out ports
55w Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery w/LED charge level indicator
75W external power adapter.
16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio; Altec Lansing Speakers
Quick mute and volume /- buttons on the side of the computer
1/8 audio out
1/8 microphone port
~Battery Life-
Using the computer for just word processing with the screen dimmed….3 hours run time! Now let me remind you I have the power saving feature set to maximum battery and the autosave features of Word turned off for minimum hard disk access.
Internet use via the LAN connection or an add on wireless connection… 2.5 hours
Watching a DVD or burning multiple CDs… a little over 2 hours run time.
All in all, great runtime for this computer. Charging the battery takes about 1 minute for 1.5%
7/10 rating
~Weight and size-
Other important factors when purchasing a laptop are the physical characteristics. Dimensions are 12.96" (L) x 10.72" (W) x 1.57" (H) weighing in at 6.75lbs. The weight and dimensions of this computer make it slightly too big and heave to be classified as a notebook, thus making it a Laptop computer. The laptop is great for travel in my opinion or for using in the classroom. 7/10 rating
~Processor-
Well, it’s no Pentium. The 1.6ghz Intel Celeron Mobile Processor performs well when the computer is plugged into A/C power. However, when the computer is running on battery power, the processor is dynamically clocked down to 200mhz to save on power. This causes the computer to run very slow and have lots of lag. I plan on upgrading my RAM to 512mb—this may help slightly on the lag. The ability of this processor to dynamically clock itself is poor. I give it a 4/10 rating
~Screen-
The screen is beautiful. No lag time in the refresh rate (some LCD screens update so slowly they tend to smear). The video is powered by an ATI MOBILITY RADEON graphics card on 4X AGP architecture. The graphics processor also features 3D architecture and a video processor with shared memory. The shared memory feature is great. You can set the laptop to use 8mb of RAM to save power, 16mb for normal performance, and 32mb for maximum performance. At 16mb the graphics processor can provide the maximum refresh rate of 60hz to the display producing beautiful graphics at 1024x728 (max) at 32bit millions of colors. I suggest getting a 14 inch screen to save extra weight added from a 15 inch screen. 9/10 rating
~Sound-
Above average laptop sound is produced by a 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio chipset featuring Altec Lansing Speakers. Altec Lansing is the maker of the speakers I use on my desktop. After owning a laptop with Altec Lansing speakers—I think I will require future laptops to have Altec Lansing speakers. While these laptop speakers won’t thump much bass—they do sound great for a speaker system without a subwoofer.
8/10 rating
~Operating Temperature-
Hot hot hot! This laptop runs hot. Sitting on your lap it can become uncomfortable, especially if the laptop is charging. If you sit the computer on your lap and block the fan intake it gets even hotter and will sometimes shut down automatically to protect the system. The fan has two speeds—mine spends most of its time on the higher speed. If the computer has been off for awhile and you boot it up on the battery and run it on the battery it will stay cool. If you go from A/C power to battery power the laptop will remain hot for the duration of the battery runtime. 5/10 rating
~Keyboard and buttons-
They keyboard is small and fairly quiet. It accommodates my large hands barely which is saying a lot for an 88-key keyboard. The numeric keypad is built into the keyboard and can be turned on with the press of a function key. It’s a little odd using the numeric pad on a slant (since the keys take over the keys from 7 to 0 and 7 to M). The five programmable buttons are great. Easy to program via the Keyboard control panel. The touchpad has a button above it to disable it and the mouse buttons for the clumsy typist. The touchpad is great, you can click and double click with it without using the buttons, merely tap the pad once or twice to do your desired function. To the right of the touchpad is a small divider with an up and down arrow on it. Moving your finger up or down on this part of the pad acts like the scroll button on a normal mouse. The power button is located to the left of the programmable buttons on the top of the keyboard.
~Other-
This laptop is great and I would recommend it to anyone, however, there are a few drawbacks. For one, there is no floppy disk drive built in to the computer. You can purchase a USB floppy drive from the HP website for $49 and the laptop comes with a rebate good for $50 towards the purchase of an HP USB floppy drive…so you can get a drive for free basically.
Second, no firewire port. Some laptops are coming with firewire ports, it would have been a nice option but not necessary. It would have made the price more anyway. 6/10
~The cool look-
What I really like about this laptop besides the power, battery time and screen is the look. All of the LED’s for the Power button, Programmable buttons, touchpad, and power/hdd/charge/function indicators are all BLUE. Finally an escape from the boring green LED’s on every other computer out there. The plastic is a dark blue/black with silver trim which encompasses the screen and keyboard. 10/10
~Expandability-
Any 9.5mm hard disk can be used in this unit. To replace, simply remove two screws and it slides out. One screw holds the RAM cover in place. Upgradeable to 1gb of memory. The battery can be replaced by moving locking quick slide and sliding it out. Fast switch if you have more than one battery. Use hibernate mode to change batteries while running on batteries. 10/10
~Warranty-
One year manufacturer warranty on parts and labor. I upgraded this to two years for $20 by purchasing an extended warranty from the customer service desk at Sam’s club. $20 up front could save me hundreds later.
~Contents-
Laptop
Modem Cable
Power Cable
Power Adapter
Warranty Card
Special Offer Folder
Manual
~Conclusion-
Overall this is the best laptop you can buy for around $900 bucks. It has all the features necessary to make it a good laptop and the battery runtime is slightly above average. A floppy drive would have been nice, but would have added weight—the CD burner can easily take its place. I give this laptop an 7 out of a possible 10 rating.
~Author’s note-
I realize this review is similar to my review on the HP xf335. Some parts (very few) are exactly the same and this is due to the fact that both laptops are in the same family (z1000 series) and use similar (and sometimes the same) internal parts. I saw no point in rewriting my own words to make the reviews completely different. Both reviews accomplish the task of sharing with you my personal experiences with the computers. Feel free to leave any comments on the subject in the comment section of the review.
© 2003 WVaBackpacker
Written for http://www.epinions.com 31 Mar 2003
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Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 899
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 14 inches
RAM: 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 21-30
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wvabackpacker
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Member: Jeremy Hays
Location: Columbus, OH, USA
Reviews written: 40
Trusted by: 46 members
About Me:
Maybe I'll write another review someday...lots of new gear...
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