Rating: 
Summary: Best Bang for the Buck!
Review: After researching different laptops for a couple of weeks I found that the HP Pavilion ze4145 was the best!! After rebates the price was hard to beat. The AMD Athlon processor is a screemer! DVDs run as smooth as on TV, and the CDRW drive works without a hitch. I've used many a laptop in my day, but this was the one I bought. 512MB RAM, 40GB Hard drive and a 15" screen were all big selling points. This machine also runs a lot cooler than some I've used in the past. I would recommend the ze4145 to anyone looking for a powerful machine!
Rating:
Summary: deployment ready pc
Review: As a member of the armed forces I'm set to leave home for an extended period of time and I couldn't imagine leaving my beloved desktop behind. As a member of the armed forces I also couldn't imagine being able to aford an acceptable replacement that I could take with me. I shopped around for over a week and the HP ZE4145 was the best value I could find anywhere. It was the combination of price and features of the ZE4145 that convinced me that it would be worth buying a laptop. I ordered it while away on training and it was recived by my wife who is a computer novice. She managed to get it registered and running DVDs on our home TV via the s-video tv-out port. She even set it up for easy one-touch operation.For me it will be a great source of entertainment while spending countless days away from home. I have accumulated a nice collection of DVDs in a short time,I already have several computer games to play, and a collection of hundreds of MP3s. All of which the ZE4145 can handle with ease. The LAN port allows me to network with my shipmates who also have notebooks. The 40gig HD give me pleanty of room to streach. The 15" screen is the envy of many other notebook owners onboard. The video card can be set to use up to 64MB of RAM and with 512MB you can manage to lose it. I haven't had a single problem yet. I love my new notebook.
Rating: 
Summary: A WELL-PACKAGED ALL-ROUNDER, BUT NOT A TOP-GUN
Review: For sure, there is no questioning the fact that "HP Pavilion ze4145" is a good laptop PC; but I must add that at any price higher than the stated Amazon.com rebate price, it does not worth a second look. Yes, it came with an Athlon XP 1800, a 512MB DDR RAM, and a 40GB Hard Disk, but that is nothing extraordinary. Moreso, as we brace for 2003, both the 512MB DDR RAM and 40GB Hard Disk have become mainstream components for laptops. Some even parade 60GB Hard Disks!
In fact, anyone who is in touch with the component-versus-price fluctuations in the computer industry will not be impressed by this HP Notebook. Do not forget that its 'almighty' Athlon XP 1800 has a raw speed of 1.53GHz, which is nothing outstanding. And, before you scream that it is faster than a comparable Pentium 4; note that Pentium 4 CPUs come with built-in extended-instruction-sets, which enable them to run optimized software twice as fast as comparable Athlon CPUs would.
In conclusion, I would say that despite the fact that I regard this "HP Pavilion ze4145" as a good all-round PC, I still maintain that it is not by any means a top-gun: both in price and in build.
Rating: 
Summary: Beware of a costly lemon!
Review: I bought my HP Pavilion ze4145 brand new off the shelf at Best Buy. My biggest mistake was not buying the extended warranty.
Just like some car companies, HP built this laptop to last for about as long as the original warranty (1 year).
I can tell you that several costly items will break-down:
1) The first to go is the battery, which by the way does not last very long to justify it's expense to replace.
2) The second to go for me was the ports I used the most. Many users have reported that the motherboard cracks causing the following problems.
a. Parallel Printer port
b. The PCMIA slot of which there is ONLY one even though the slot openings (plural) gives the appearance of two.
3) The third thing to go is the CD/DVD Writer. The reader portion continues to work, but the writer is shot.
4) Finally the most costly breakdown of them all is nothing short of highway robbery. If I had the resources I would take HP to court for this one alone!
The parts that HP use in both their HP and Compaq laptops are faulty. Especially the "inverters". This little part, which used to sell for $25-30 dollars, is the lifeline to the LCD screen functioning. Only HP does not sell the inverter any more. You have to buy the entire LCD assembly for nearly $1500.00 to repair this. Or you can buy the inverter part on Ebay for as much as $150-200 dollars with no guarantee that it works.
If you dont plan on having the laptop around for a while I'd say it was a great PC while it lasted. But expect to pay a heavy toll on maintainance if you want any life out of your investment. And by all means get the longest extended warranty you can get your hands on.
You have been warned!
Rating:
Summary: BANG FOR THE BUCK
Review: I have done alot of looking online and for the price you cannot beat this! This would cost you [$$]+ on a difrent system.I have had it for a week and have used it mostly as my main pc and gaming platform the games I play our power hungry flight simms Falcon 4.0, Flanker 2.5, etc... as you can see these games requir alot of power mem=512DDR, a AGP 32DDR (AGPX4 means you can upgrade latter) witch alot of other laptops dont give you that option even the DDR ram can be upgraded to 1gigDDR![.]
So if you dont want to spen [$$]then this is a name brand computer for you[.]
I now use this notbook as my main pc so you know it is powerful!
Rating:
Summary: I would recommend it highly....
Review: I needed a well rounded, powerful, notebook PC that would be as comfortable in our networked environment at our design firm, as it would be in my lap on the weekends. At the office, I easily run applications such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks, QuarkXpress, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, Powerpoint and even Photoshop. After work hours and on weekends, I can send my e-mails, work on our invoices in Quickbooks, or on rare occasions, relax and watch a DVD! This is really a well built notebook. Here are the PROS and CONS in my opinion. PROS
- Very good screen size. The thinkpad and DELL users that I have come in contact with (including a former repair technician for DELL) have all been drooling over it.
- Large hard drive, lots of memory
- Fast processor, quiet hard drive
- Cool features, like the touchpad scrollbar, as well as a button that allows you to turn off the touchpad. The blue lights are quite attractive.
- The keyboard has a nice solid feel. CONS
- Don't let the ALTEC LANSING name fool you - the speakers are nothing to write home about!
- No floppy drive. I hardly use them but I was disappointed not to get one in the box (rather it came with a $50 rebate offer on an external floppy drive.
- Microsoft XP Home - not a great idea if you are using the notebook at the office to administer or connect to network resources like a server. Everytime I connect to a network share, I have to enter a password - there is no option to save the password. Other little things in XP home are really a turn off... but that's a MICROSOFT issue.
- CDR Drive does not include burnproof technology, so close some applications before burning.
- HP has included some proprietory cdr drivers which will create cds that can only be read by other HP drives. This feature is enabled by default, but can easily be disabled. The standard drag and drop XP cdr capabilities work just fine! What was HP thinking?! The first CD i made became a coaster. But as I said, it can easily be disabled - thereafter it works fine! Overall, especially given the price, I would recommend this laptop highly.
Rating:
Summary: Bad Batteries / Bad Motherboards
Review: I purchased my notebook computer in November of 2001. At the same time I purchased HP's [$$$] 'Support Pack' which extends the warranty to 3 years and guarantees a 3 day turn around time. Fed Ex picks it up and brings it back and HP picks up the shipping. I wasted my money
I have owned my computer for 12 months and it hasn't worked properly for 8 months. The battery will not fully charge. Sometimes it will charge to only 3%, sometimes to 70%. But it will not fully charge no matter how long you try to charge it.
I have performed numerous system calibrations and BIOS upgrades and I have sent it in for repair 3 times...This time they replaced the motherboard. The problem isn't fixed.
My computer still doesn't work...
Save yourself a huge headache. Buy a computer that works...
Rating:
Summary: Bad Batteries / Bad Motherboards
Review: I purchased my notebook computer in November of 2001. At the same time I purchased HP's [$$$] 'Support Pack' which extends the warranty to 3 years and guarantees a 3 day turn around time. Fed Ex picks it up and brings it back and HP picks up the shipping. I wasted my money
I have owned my computer for 12 months and it hasn't worked properly for 8 months. The battery will not fully charge. Sometimes it will charge to only 3%, sometimes to 70%. But it will not fully charge no matter how long you try to charge it.
I have performed numerous system calibrations and BIOS upgrades and I have sent it in for repair 3 times...This time they replaced the motherboard. The problem isn't fixed.
My computer still doesn't work...
Save yourself a huge headache. Buy a computer that works...
Rating: 
Summary: Still working after 3 montsh
Review: I've been using this laptop regulary for 3 months now and wanted to give a report on how it's doing. The good: runs quiet and doesn't overheat, screen is still good, dvd playback is fantastic, relatively stable, burner still working (no coasters yet). The bad: hibernation doesn't work, the video card has a problem with direct x and is subpar for games (I have constant lock ups playing Half Life and video card isn't supported by newer games like America's Army), problems with the touchpad (it also feels flimsy). If you are a student like me, I'd definitely reccomend this laptop. It's got more than enough power to type a report,watch a dvd, or burn some music. Just don't count on being able to play games on it. If you get hp laptop, get one with an amd chip. It seems like the ones with pentiums have more problems and don't perform up to their specs from what I've read in the reviews here.
Rating:
Summary: The power supply exploded
Review: In addition to numerous other problems that this laptop has had over the past year, its power supply just EXPLODED. So not only does this laptop have shoddy hardware, it's a fire hazard.
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