HP Pavilion ze5170 Notebook PC (2.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512MB 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

If you're tempted to replace a desktop computer with a compact high-end system, Hewlett-Packard's Pavilion ze5170 notebook PC might be just the ticket. Powered by a 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor and sporting a generous, brilliant 15-inch, active-matrix TFT display, the ze5170 muscles its way through most any productivity or multimedia task. With two USB ports and an ATI Mobility Radeon 3-D graphics chip, it's also a quite credible high-end portable gaming machine.

The ze5170 serves up heaping portions of memory and storage. Its 40 GB hard drive easily swallows large application and data files, and its 512 MB of 266 MHz DDR SDRAM--expandable to a maximum of 1,024 MB--blazes through any software. An integrated 10/100 Ethernet card makes it simple to network the ze5170, and wireless connectivity is a snap with an optional 802.11b card. The ze5170's external ports include a port replicator and a PCI dock connector, letting you connect to external monitors, mice, and network hookups.

Watching DVD movies and listening to or even burning audio CDs is convenient with the ze5170's DVD/CD-RW combination drive (24x/8x/8x, 8x DVD).

At roughly 7.5 pounds (depending on configuration) and squeezed into a 13-by-10.7-by-1.8-inch package, the ze5170 won't win any featherweight titles. But from the comfort of a home office or hotel suite--or even the relative discomfort of an airline seat--the ze5170's cool blue lights and full-size, 87-key, spill-resistant keyboard offer a first-class, hands-on experience and smart visuals.

Installed software includes a wide range of productivity and multimedia tools. The ze5170 ships with Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition; Corel WordPerfect 9 word processor and Quattro Pro 9 spreadsheet; Quicken Financial Center by Intuit, including New Users Edition 2002; Encyclopedia Britannica Ready Reference; Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.0; PowerDirector Pro VE video editing software; My Games 3-D entertainment; ArcSoft PhotoStudio, Funhouse, and PhotoImpression 4 editing tools; and Norton AntiVirus 2002.

Customer Reviews:

Seemed good at the time.......2005-08-04

This laptop worked fine for me for the first year and a half. I could write my papers. I could write programs. Movies played great. For that period of time it was a GREAT laptop. All was right with the world. Then one day, inexplicably, my CD-RW stops working. I mean it couldn't read anything from a burned data CD to a DVD. It was never dropped, hit, or otherwise attacked. It sat on a table by itself at all times. I took it to the local PC doctors and after some diagnostics it was determined that the CD-RW was bad. Then, about a year or so later my hard drive decided it was tired of working. One day I got the blue screen and it was all she wrote. It wouldn't even start Windows XP. I took it back to the PC doctor, they ran some diagnostics, and told me the hard drive was jacked up. Getting a replacement from HP wasn't an option as they charge twice as much and more for one than other retailers. I'm looking for an affordable one online and I'm just going to replace it myself. Before this I was using a Sony VAIO desktop. I will admit that those things are a little pricier than a lot of PCs but I can honestly say that I NEVER had a hardware issue with it. It might be time for me to save up some paychecks and go back to what worked and leave this HP mess alone.

OK notebook, worst support.......2005-01-11

OK notebook, had to be sent to hp for repair on soundboard and harddrive. It took HP almost 1 year to send my laptop back fixed, but with parts missing. The store, CompUSA kept a record of the parts sent to them too and confirmed that the battery never came back. The HP support team "supervisor" denied and yelled and made threats as a response, so the CompUSA manager just gave up and bought me a new battery since I also had their store's extended warranty. Couple months later, my harddrive is now clicking and I got the error prediction that I need to replace my harddrive. Could it be that HP gave me a refurbished harddrive? I guess I'll never know. Overall this notebook is good in terms of power and speed. I've watched DVD movies on it and played 3D PC Games. The laptop does get a bit hot due to it's desktop pentium 4 processor, but there are numerous fans to cool it. The battery also drains quickly, about an hour or so depending on what you're doing. I'd recommend this notebook for speed and price, but don't count on it lasting too long. Also, send to HP for repair as the very last resort, or you might not even see your laptop for months or even in one piece if it makes it back.

HP makes cruddy laptops don't buy this.......2004-10-07

If you go on HPs forums, you'll see quite a few major problems with this laptop.
1. DC jack comes loose or breaks off board, laptop becomes unuseable
2. Backlight flickers, then goes off, inverter fried
3. Hard drive may suddenly stop responding
4. Touch pad is sticky or non responsive or just plain broken
5. Upgrading bios may turn the laptop into a brick even if you do it exactly right and pick the right one.
6. Battery stops working unexpectedly
7. Buying it from a computer store, you may be missing parts like th AC adapter or the recovery disks. HP will charge you $100 for the disks even though the windows license is right on the computer. Don't ever buy a computer from an electronics store. Never.

If you have enough to get a decent computer, buy a Dell. If you are strapped for cash, buy a Gateway. If you have plenty of cash, buy a Thinkpad...they are the best laptops in the market. I am not writing this as a rabid "fanboy", but as a person who owns the paperweight, I mean the HP ze5170 right now and who has experienced every one of these issues. I have also owned several Thinkpads and Gateways. Oh, I miss my 333mhz Thinkpad...isn't that terrible?

could cry.......2004-06-05

Nothing but trouble. It never worked from the day I got it. Had it repaired, 6 months later hard drive is clicking and fans not working. Lost hard drive. HP says ship it back. I said - it's under warranty right, you fixed it 6 months ago. She says no it is not under warranty. Repair is warrantied for 90 days. "90 days???" I said. "Well, there is obviously a REASON" you won't warranty your products or repair for more than 90 days.

Isn't there?

Great Notebook.......2004-01-22

I purchesed this notebook about one year ago and am very happy with the unit. It is portable, which is a plus. I have two batteries for it, so I get about five hours of battery life, which is great because I travel often. This laptop is very fast. It is great with DVD's, CD's, and is very easy to use. I highly recomend this notebook. I also highly suggest Windows XP for great performance.

Electronics:

Electronics

Electronics