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Rating: 
Summary: Great, but Not Perfect
Review: In a word, the HP zd7030us laptop is a powerhouse! The feature list for this bad boy goes on for miles, 3.06GHz HyperThreading mobile processor, 512MB DDR RAM, 80GB 5400RPM hard drive, 5-in-1 media reader, CD-RW/DVD-RW, built-in 802.11g wireless and a partridge in a pear tree. However, not everything great is under the hood. It's beautiful with it's black on aluminum look and those trademark blue HP lights.Alright, here's the stuff HP likes to hear. These are the features I really like. For the guys, the full size keyboard and numeric pad mean no more having to have your wife type for you (at least we say it's because of the small keyboard) You can enable/disable the touch pad with a single touch of the button that's right above it, so your mouse isn't flailing about while you're typing. This thing has some kind of a personality conflict. It thinks it's a television, Tivo and radio all in one and you can control it all through it's full size remote control. The Harmam/Kardon speakers are incredible, need I say more? It has more connections than the space shuttle, which means only one thing; I can connect at least twice as many "necessities" to this as my previous laptop! This is all topped off with at 128MB Nvidia GeForce FX Go5600 graphics card. What's that mean to you? You can game until your heart's content or just brag about how your new laptop has more memory on it's video card alone than all of your previous computers combined. Here are the things that I don't like ...(sorry guys). First off, this thing weights nearly 10 pounds (9.3 to be exact)! ... Second, do yourself a favor and buy a mouse when you're buying this laptop, seriously. The touchpad it has is horrible. It leaps all over the screen, won't even go all the way across the screen andmoves when you're just getting ready to click. Now for the biggie. I don't know if this is just my laptop or not, but I've been having major problems with applications rebooting my laptop (when done installing). After it reboots, it goes in to an on/off cycle. Turns on for about 3 seconds, turns off, turns on and so on until I hold down the power button to completely shut it off. When I get the problem nailed down, I'll be calling HP support, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it's just my laptop. Well, all in all I rated it a 4 our of 5. Even with it's downfalls, it's the stuff nerd's (ok, my) dreams are made of! I just can't bring myself to hate something this cool. So, grab yourself a mouse and start drooling! And the saga continues... (one week later) Alright, well I've had some more time with my new companion and I have another complaint. The media center locks up when playing live tv. The longest I've gotten it to play is 40 seconds. I have a support ticket in to HP. We'll have to wait and see what the resolve is. Kind or irritating to have something this big (the media center) not work! Obviously this laptop was not tested. Come on HP... the 4's wavering on the edge, ready to fall in to a 3.
Rating: 
Summary: Great machine, as a gaming plataform and as a work station
Review: Well, I was looking for a great piece of hardware that was portable, not really a machine I could take on a jet plane during a travel, but something I could carry around college for presenting my final thesis. Since I'm also a big games fan I wanted something powerful enough to run the latest games around. I searched around and I this one, it is clearly the most powerfull HP Notebook (at least up to Jan-2004). Since the reviews on the HP Compaq nx9010 were so bad I wanted my money to be well invested. Well, I can tell you now that it was well worth the price.
The zd7030US THE best notebook on the market for that price. It's 128megs GForce 5600 GO is enough to let's you play even Unreal Tournament 2004 with FULL quality and with 1024x768 graphics, with no slowdowns, and its DVD player let's you burn and watch DVD movies in full WIDESCREEN. The Windows Media center also adds a lot of value for its TV Tuner and Video Capturer, also the remote control makes this a great 17'' HI Def TV. The software bundled's not something to talk too much about the basic Norton AV 2003 and MS Works, and some little applications for multimedia like Musicmatch and WinDVD. Off course sadly it has its downs, the low speed BUS on the motherboard and the Hard Drive really is an terribly crude paradox for the whole design on the machine, hurting a bit the performance on the loading of some aplications (like games and other multimedia), the DVD+R limits the work with only +R dics, the low bettery life and the loud noise of the 2 fans also are some really minor details on the whole package. Overall this Notebook is something more; it has all the things a Desktop PC has to offer with the portablity it can bring. (Great for making fast LANs for Battlefield or UT2004 on a friends house).
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