HP Pavilion ze5170 Notebook PC (2.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive)

Rating:
Summary: OK notebook, worst support
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Great performance, very relaible, no complaint
Review: This is the best computer I had so far. very reliable, 40GB is a lot. Screen is very bright and the design, I have to admit, the best HP has ever made. The touch pad is one of its biggest advantage. Not so many manufactures have this scroll area on the touch pad, which lets scroll up and down very easily and fast without the need to keep pressing the page-up or page-down, it is much faste. The feel of the kkeyboard is very nice and soft. Battery life is reasonable, around 2.5 hrs, depends on how you use the unit. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointed...
Review: We bought this PC for my father-inlaw. He does not want to be a PC expert. He wants to send email, surf the web, buy things from Amazon, watch some DVDs and listen to music. This PC has been nothing but trouble. DVDs did not play at all. After checking out the HP user forums, a full reinstall was the answer. Merry Christmas, Dad! Failed startups are common, reboots if you plug/unplug power during startup, screen flicker, and rotten online support have made this a really poor experience. I encourage you to go to the HP user forums and see the problems that people are having with this unit. It does not seem like I got the one bad apple. Good luck.

Rating:
Summary: Sadly disappointed...
Review: We bought this PC for my father-inlaw. He does not want to be a PC expert. He wants to send email, surf the web, buy things from Amazon, watch some DVDs and listen to music. This PC has been nothing but trouble. DVDs did not play at all. After checking out the HP user forums, a full reinstall was the answer. Merry Christmas, Dad! Failed startups are common, reboots if you plug/unplug power during startup, screen flicker, and rotten online support have made this a really poor experience. I encourage you to go to the HP user forums and see the problems that people are having with this unit. It does not seem like I got the one bad apple. Good luck.