HP Pavilion ze4125 Notebook PC (1.4 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1600+, 256MB RAM, 40GB hard drive)

Product Description

The HP Pavilion notebooks provide you with the freedom to work, play or connect from anywhere, anytime. These notebooks offer the best value for money from the industry's leader in the production of superb mobile solutions. Don't sacrifice reliability for mobility - get both. Reliable and mobile, the HP Pavilion notebooks deliver the optimal blend of performance and portability. HP Pavilion notebooks bring you the best of both worlds with fast processors and capacious hard drives - everything you need to stay productive.

Amazon.com Product Description

Nothing transforms a long airplane ride or a prolonged layover into a civilized experience faster than a notebook with a brilliant 15-inch display and a built-in DVD/CD-RW drive for screening DVD movies and listening to CDs. The Hewlett-Packard Pavilion ze4125 is just the kind of notebook PC that business travelers, or anyone, for that matter, might long for on such a journey.

An AMD Athlon XP 1600+ processor provides enough computing sinew to handle a plethora of productivity tasks and entertainment duties. At roughly 7 pounds and barely more than 1.5 inches thick, the ze4125's 15-inch, active-matrix TFT display coupled with an ATI Mobility Radeon 4X AGP (including 3-D architecture for cutting-edge gaming) is likely to elicit envious glances from fellow travelers. The ze4125'a DVD/CD-RW combination drive (24x/8x/8x, 8x DVD) provides not only multimedia entertainment, but also the flexibility to make CDs and back up data.

The ze4125 heaps on the memory and storage. Its 40 GB hard drive devours large application and data files, and its 256 MB of DDR SDRAM--expandable to a maximum of 1,024 MB--lets you easily run several applications simultaneously. An integrated 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN connector makes it simple to network the ze4125. External ports include two USB inputs, a 25-pin parallel port, a serial connector, a PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, and 15-pin VGA and S-video TV-out plugs. The notebook also includes a 56K integrated modem with RJ-11 connector.

Bundled software includes Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, InterVideo WinDVD, HP RecordNow CD-RW recording utility, ArcSoft Funhouse and PhotoImpression editing tools, Corel WordPerfect and Quattro Pro productivity applications, Quicken Financial Center by Intuit, Encyclopedia Britannica Ready Reference, Wild Tangent 3-D games, Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0, and Norton AntiVirus 2002 with three-month live update.

Customer Reviews:

Overall solid, but..........2004-07-05

This seemed to be a great laptop for a while, except for a strange power failure when the chassis sometimes flexed. I was a little concerned about the power input because it seemed a little weak, then had my worst fears confirmed when it slipped off my lap and whacked the power cord where it goes into the right rear corner of the chassis. The pin inside snapped. They should have recessed the power input so it wasn't so vulnerable. I have somewhat of a facility with being able to repair stuff like this, but I couldn't get the thing apart. Now I'll have to take it to a repair shop to at least get it apart, then have to see if I can fix the pin or if I can get another part.

Granted, I should have been more careful, but the nature of a laptop is that it is going to get moved around a lot, and the way the cord plugs in is just a very weak design. I should have gotten more use out of it before something major like this happened. In most other ways this computer seems to be a good value.

Great features, poor reliability.......2004-03-23

This machine delivered a lot of bang for the buck... or so it seemed.

My machine started failing only three months after I took it home. It exhibited intermitted errors with its power switch, and eventually failed to wake up after entering hibernation mode. Sadly, I had to take it into the shop four times over the course of a year -- and on one occasion, it took nearly two months to fix the darned thing.

I was eventually forced to spend a fortune on another PC, scarcely 15 months after buying my HP ze4125. I decided that having an unreliable laptop was worse than having no laptop whatsoever.

It seemed like a really good buy at the time. If I had only known...

Dependable and solid notebook PC.......2003-01-16

I've been very impressed with this system. It's my first notebook and I'm moving from a K6II-500 desktop w/ Win 98 to this platform with Win XP. I have found it to be rock solid with respect to system lockups and a breeze to use. The DVD feature is a nice one and the price was right. AMD has the best value for microprocessors on the market and I'm sold on their products. Wouldn't have a system without one!

Pretty good....for a PC.......2002-12-27

Okay so, I'm a Mac guy...with GOOD reason. I found this to be a stable machine, elegant design, good solid keyboard. Although, no computer is better than it's OS, mine being XP home edition. I personally prefer Windows 2000 pro, (if you held a gun to my head and made me choose a microsoft platform) only because I route AppleTalk over it....XP? No such option. I still have a great LaserWriter Pro that has a lot of life left in it...too bad.

But this review is about the laptop, NOT the OS it runs. So I found this machine to be a solid value, although one HUGE item is missing: FIREWIRE (or, for you peecee folks) 1394.

It is for that reason that I only gave it 3 out of 5 stars....they kept the ps2 slots but omitted the firewire port.

With manufacturers falling over themselves to adopt the faster, more stable "firewire" connectivity, I found this to be an omission of ignorance on HP's part.

Solid notebook, excellent value.......2002-12-22

Solid notebook with unbelievable features for the price - particurally with rebates ...Unfortunate how 'official' reviews at another site totally overlooks it, concentrating on high-end laptops/tablets, while their middle and low end reviews are obsolete models.
Do miss the lack of a floppy and ordered the 'free' after rebate but had a use for it when seting up network - wanting to save settings to floppy, but of course had to wait on the mail. If HP is going to give away the floppy, they really ought to include it. This is a solid chassis. As I looked at the various models from all manufacturers, I flexed the front corners to see how stiff the chassis was. Only HP and Toshiba passed that test for durability. Then became a choice between AMD Athalon XP (HP) or Celeron (Toshiba). Software a non-issue as will be trashed. Already have Office Pro so why do I need Works or WordPerfect?. Wish they would have it operating system only and reduce the price even further. Had to call HP service during the initial setup. Turned out to be a network communication problem that we eventually resolved. Very knowlegeable and responsive staff.
One thing I wish all manufacturers would work on is their recovery process. Basically, if something goes wrong, the solution is to trash everything on the hard drive and reinstall back to 'as sold.' It is a simplistic approach, but has to be a better way as I know several people who have lost important letters, e-mail address lists etc. Plus it is a pain to then re-install the software you actually use, and updated drivers for the components. Another reason HP should include the floppy - keep external as saves weight, but include. I have avoided the manufacturers 'customization' of software in the past by building my own computers - but a notebook is too proprietary to homebuild.

Electronics:

Electronics

Electronics