HP Pavilion ZV5220US Review

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HP Pavilion ZV5220US
4.5 stars
Average rating for this product is: 4.5 out of 5

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GoneTomorrow's Review of HP Pavilion ZV5220US Laptop

14th Jul 2004

Overall Rating

4.5 stars
  • Value for money
    3.5 stars
  • Screen Quality
    5 stars
  • Ease of Use
    4.5 stars
  • Time Laptop Owned
    Less than a Week
  • Battery Life
    3 stars
Good Points

Excellent wide screen display, sound, performance.


Bad Points

Heavy, large (difficult to find case), crappy HP bundled software.


General Comments

I've built my own desktops for a while now, so the HP Pavilion ZV5220US is my first laptop. I was a bit wary at first because the clock speed of the Athlon XP-M 3000+ processor is only 1.6 GHz, but so far it can handle multiple threads and multi tasking without any significant slowdown.

The computer has a 15.4" wide screen aspect, which is excellent for watching widescreen movies and viewing web pages with NO scroll bars. For video hardware it does have a genuine nVidia video card, but only 32 MB of video memory, but it is a laptop and not a gaming machine.

The sound is above average for other laptops I've heard. It has built in Harmon Kardon speakers which are surprisingly clear and produces noiceable bass, particulary when you adjust your media player's EQ settings. It has no actual sound card, but Sound Max's onboard sound.

It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, a definite plus, but I wish this model had just one Firewire port. I would have given up one of the USB ports if I could.

The wireless ethernet card is the most impressive piece of hardware on this machine. It locates networks and connects with blinding speed. I was able to move 30 feet from the router before the signal weakened.

The only negative things so far are the size and HP software. This is an enormous laptop. It weighs in a 7.9 lbs with a 15.4" screen. I haven't found a decent case that can accomodate it yet that isn't as big as a suitcase. The con about PC laptops is that they get drastically expensive the smaller they get, unlike Apple Powrbooks.

HP absolutely innundates their laptops with 3rd rate, poor bundled software, like their own photo editor, media player, and the ubiquitous Microsoft Works, the most useless software known to man.

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