nice desktop replacement

Author's Rating:

Pros: Feature rich & lots of value for the money

Cons: Battery life, size, pre-installed garbage software, no keyboard or mouse ports

The Bottom Line: 
Great laptop for the money, but not most portable & battery life isn't the best on the market, otherwise tons of features and very good

Author's Review
UPDATES in italics 3/31/06

My old laptop (dell inspiron 8200) had just recently died due to a bad harddrive. So it was time to start looking for a new laptop (yes, I know I could have just replaced the harddrive for less, but the technology was getting old)

Enter the HP Pavilion ZV6130us that I bought on clearance from CompUSA for $650 after tax & rebates. It's a larger desktop replacement type of laptop weighing in at a hefty 8 pounds and featuring a large 15.4" widescreen LCD display.

Quick rundown of specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3200 2GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive, 15.4-inch WXGA TFT Display, DVD /-RW Drive, Windows XP Home Edition

More in depth rundown:
Processor Brand: AMD
Processor Class: Athlon 64
Processor Number: 3200
Processor Speed: 2.0 GHz
Bus Speed: 2.0 GHz
Mobile Technology: Other
L2 Cache Size: 512 KB
Memory Speed: PC-2700 (333MHz)
Memory Technology: DDR-SDRAM
Installed Memory: 512 MB
Maximum Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive Capacity: 80 GB
Drive Controllers: IDE (Ultra ATA/DMA)
Rotational Speed: 4200 RPM
DVD Read Speed: Not specified by manufacturer
DVD Write Speed: Not specified by manufacturer
Additional Drives: DL DVD /-RW
Sound Support: Digital Audio (16-bit)
Video Chipset Brand: ATI
Video Chipset: RADEON XPRESS 200M IGP
Installed Video Memory: 128 MB
Resolution: 1280 x 800
Display Size: 15.4 in
Display Type: Active Matrix LCD (TFT)
Port Connectors:
* 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0
* 1 Audio - Headphone-out
* 1 Audio - Microphone-in
* 1 Video - VGA (15-pin)
* 1 Video - TV-Out (S-Video)
* 1 RJ-11 (modem)
* 1 RJ-45 Ethernet (LAN)
* 1 IEEE 1394 FireWire (4-pin)
* 1 Expansion Port 2 connector
* 1 Consumer IR (Remote Receiver)
Card Slots: Memory Stick
Memory Stick Pro
SmartMedia Card
Secure Digital(SD)/MMC
xD-Picture Card
ExpressCard/34
ExpressCard/54
(1) Type II / Type I CardBus
Network Support: Ethernet (10/100 Mbps)
Wireless Protocol: 802.11b
802.11g
Modem Speed: 56 Kbps
Input Devices: Keyboard
Touchpad
Number of Batteries: 1
Installed Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition
Included Software: Security and Support:
* Symantec™ Norton Internet Security 2005™ (including complimentary 60 days Live Update)
* HP Total Care Help & Support Center
* Adobe Acrobat Reader
* Recovery DVD
Productivity and Finance:
* Microsoft® Works
* Microsoft® Money
* Micorosft® MSN Encarta® Plus
* HP Image Zone Plus photo and imaging
Multimedia:
* Sonic Digital Media Studio
* InterVideo WinDVD Player
* InterVideo Home Theater
* muvee™ autoProducer DVD Edition with Burning
* Micorosft® Windows® Movie Maker
In the Box:
* HP Pavilion zv6130us Notebook
* 120W AC Adapter
* 8-cell Lithium-Ion (65Whr) battery
Height: 1.9 in
Width: 14.3 in
Depth: 11.1 in
Weight: 8.0 lbs

My impressions:
Upon starting it up for the first time, there is a lot of garbage programs & links installed on the laptops desktop i.e. AOL, Earthlink & other internet provider info, HP accessories link, some holiday card creating link (possibly hallmark?), and lots of other "trial software". I believe this is all installed because the manufacturer (HP) gets kickback from these companies for preinstalling such stuff on the laptop (in hopes that you will use it). The downside, lots of junk to remove from your laptop before you start using it. The upside, it helps keep the cost to the consumer down.

The laptop has a lot of nice features and seems quite powerful for the money that I paid. Most notable for me was the Radeon XPRESS 200M 128MB video card that is integrated into the motherboard. This was important for video gaming purposes. Other uses would be for video editing.

Screen is bright and large enough (15.4" widescreen) that you don't really need to hook it up to a monitor to view webpages. The width is quite nice because you don't have to resize and scroll sideways to view the whole page. The "britescreen" technology is very bright indoors, I actually have to set the brightness level down on the screen as it is almost too bright for me. (plus it conserves battery life a little bit) The downside to the britescreen is that it's highly reflective. This means that if you're in the local starbucks with your back to the window on a sunny day, it might be very hard to read the screen. You will also see the advantage of the widescreen technology when watching dvd's. You get a better widescreen image than if you had a standard size screen. you can hook up a standard monitor to the back of the laptop to setup a dual display desktop! this means you can have a dvd movie playing on the regular monitor and then be doing whatever else you need to do on the laptop monitor. The mouse cursor just drags items across to the other monitor to work. It's also very useful for productivity because you can have a database open on one screen and then a spreadsheet open on the other for cross referencing purposes or what have you.

Wireless connectivity is built right in. The laptop features Wi-Fi standards of 802.11b and 802.11g The "g" one is the good one... this allows fast wireless connection speeds of up to 54mbps (about as fast as it gets these days). What this let's you do is tap into any available wireless network without any hassle of wires and XP makes it EXTREMELY easy to connect to these wireless networks (simply click view wireless networks, choose one with the strongest signal and then hit the connect button). Many airports, coffee shops & even barnes & nobles offer free wireless connectivity, making this particular feature very nice.

Battery life: I've been getting about 2.5 - 3 hours of battery life with normal usage of WI-FI & constant web surfing and running Microsoft Office applications at the same time. I think that this is pretty good for a laptop that is running a desktop processor. The battery is a Lithium Ion 8 cell battery rated at 54 workhours.

I noticed that there wasn't much documentation with the laptop, just lots of CD's. The manual is apparently on one of the many CD's, so just be aware of that. They include a cd with the latest Microsoft XP Service Pack 2 (so you don't have to download the gigantic file) and it's already pre-installed on the computer too. They even include a Microsoft Office Trial CD (also conveniently pre-installed) as well as some other "productivity software" such as dvd burning software & a recovery cd.

There are a bunch of "hot buttons" on the keyboard surface of the laptop. DVD (brings up dvd program), WIFI (toggles wifi antenna on & off), music button (launches ITunes) and a WWW button which launches your webbrowswer (nice because then you don't have to have a link for it on your desktop). There is also a volume up/down & mute buttons near the speakers and touchpad. There is even a hot button to toggle the touchpad on and off. This is useful if you are typing and your palm keeps hitting the touchpad.

The keyboard is full size but doesn't have a 10 key punch number pad seperate (as most laptops don't) but can be activated on the main keyboard via the "function-scroll" key. I find that I can type accurately & quickly with the provided keyboard. A few of the keys are in odd locations however, such as the delete key located in the top left corner of the keyboard... but otherwise it's logically laid out and user friendly. I just noticed that there is no keyboard plug. So unless you have a USB keyboard, you will be forced to use the one built into the top... not sure how this will affect FPS gaming (same with standard mouse plug).

The speakers playback music adaquately but it's nothing remarkable. Hooking up even some cheaper amplified computer speakers will improve that. The other downside to these speakers is they are placed in front of the laptop underneath your wrists if you were typing. The wrists then muffle the output and muddy the sound further. Nobody is looking for audiophile quality out of their MP3 or CD playback, but the speaker placement just hurts the sound further when typing. Removing your arms from the keyboard definitly makes the sound richer. Too bad I can't type just by thinking my inputs :P haha

Touchpad is nice, as it features both horizontal & vertical virtual scrolling capability. If you use firefox webbrowser, you'll have to update the driver in order to get those scrolling features to work. They work fine in other applications & in Internet Explorer without the update.

RAM is standard with 512MB upgradeable to 2GB. This is spread over 2 seperate 256MB memory modules, one easily accessed through a compartment on the bottom of the laptop that is only held in place by a single screw. The 2nd module is underneath the keyboard and requires you to remove it to change it out. There are instructions on how to do that here: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00364919.pdf pg. 5-31 has the procedure. I plan on upgrading the lower one to a 1gb module to make applications run a little smoother and quicker. On the off chance you were wondering, the RAM type is PC 2700 333 bus speed (as stated above)

The Harddrive is quite large for a laptop at 80GB, but it's slow at 4200 RPM. I'd consider upgrading it if it were a smaller capacity, but for the time being it should be adequate.

Processor is an AMD Athlon 64bit 3200 which basically means it has next generation architecture on the off chance that you're still using this laptop by the time they offer software that utilizes 64bit technology (curent software is 32bit). The Athlon is a desktop processor though, so it's not as energy efficient as a true laptop mobile processor. The good news is that it's a lot more powerful then similarly rated Intel desktop processor chips (@ 2.0ghz). This particular variant of the Athlon however does use power stepping technology that will reduce your processor speed based on powersupply. Apparently the downside is that cooling fans (which there are 2 of) kick on more frequently, and it runs hotter, but i haven't experienced any fan issues) It does get a bit hot though if sitting on your lap for prolonged periods of time (as do most laptops)

There is an included digital media reader. Basically if you have Secure Digital, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Smart Media, XD or MMC memory cards, you can just slot them into the built in card reader and transfer/access files directly from the card, rather then having to lug around extra wires or card readers to access them. Very convenient for those of us who like to edit photos, but don't want to always have to carry the USB cord with us. Unfortunately there is no Compact Flash slot, so if you use that type of media, you will still have to lug around something to read that.

Which brings me to the other connections you get: 4 highspeed USB 2.0 ports, a firewire port, 1 IR port, 1 modem port, 1 ethernet port, a headphone & microphone connection, a VGA monitor output, TV out (s-video), 1 type I/II PC card slot and 1 expansion port 2 connector.

A CD/DVD /- RW burner is built in, but I've yet to burn anything with the CD/DVD burner, but will update my review when I do. Lightscribe technology is an option if ordered from the factory as is Bluetooth. However neither are present on my laptop.

In conclusion, I'm very happy with my purchase thus far. It can do everything my old laptop did and a lot more. I'll also update once I install more RAM and play some videogames with it that will tax the processor, harddrive & memory limitations more thoroughly... not necessarily in that order.