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HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Notebook PC (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) |
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| HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Notebook PC (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) |
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Average rating:  |  |
astonishing laptop |
| Im a newb to the laptop market but did alot of research before I picked up the zd7380. This laptop is incredible! picture, sound, full size keyboard. I run doom 3 at full 1680 32 bit graphics without a hickup! I did think about buying a $800 entry level laptop...but you know how it goes, you end up buying things twice if you dont purchase what really want. I have the tv tuner set up with my satellite tv and have all types of movies and shows recorded on it, the media center downloads the program guide wirelessly, I love it! Yes its a little heavy, yes the battery life is 2 hours, and yes the dvd burner is slow.....Those 3 things are really worth compromising for the power you get with this laptop. I dont burn dvd's on my laptop, I have a cheap power inverter in my suv that I plug my laptop into. As for a carry on when traveling abroad..no problem 15 pounds or so (battery included) so worth it! If I was to do it all over again I would of just purchased the 8010 model for a couple hundred more. The dual tv tuner would of been sweet! Good Luck with your purchase and hope this helped. |
| HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Notebook PC (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) - Hewlett Packard Office |  |
Review for advanced users |
This review is aimed at an advanced user who will want to use this as a desktop replacement for serious work, or serious gaming for that matter.
My decision to purchase this model was largely swayed by the screen. A 17" widescreen display running at a resolution of 1680 by 1050 is something to behold. This is definitely the best screen I have seen yet, and completely kicks my old 1600 by 1280 CRT monitor. There is just no comparison. Four weeks later, and I still say "wow" each time I power up the beast.
The display is well backed up by the Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 card with 128 megs DDR. For pure gaming, I am constantly blown away by Half-Life 2 running at the full 1680*1050 at highest quality settings. Gameplay is smooth and the display crisp, however in large and busy scenes one can notice a slight lag in response. For this reason, it would have been nice if they had put in 256 megs on the card, as seems to be the standard these days. Note that this is a desktop-equivalent graphics card, and so all the top PC games should run just fine.
The 1 gig of RAM and the 3.2 GHz processor pair up to provide quick and smooth work under Windows XP. Firing up MSOffice or compiling reams of code is appropriately fast, and I am more than happy with the performance of the unit.
Before I forget, the Harman Kardon speakers are very impressive. The sound compares very well with a pair of quality bookshelf speakers and is definitely the best stuff that I have heard coming out of a laptop. Of course, they cannot compare with a pair of good hi-fi speakers.
All the standard plugs and ports aside, the digital media memory card reader is a welcome addition, as are the four networking possibilities in the built in modem, network, wireless and firewire units. Bluetooth is missing... a pity, but the unit does provide IrDA, so I can use that to talk to my mobile phone.
A disappointment is the DVD+RW drive. You can tear through a hundred websites and manuals but nowhere does it say what speeds this unit operates at. Finally, I queried this directly with HP to be told that for DVD+RW the unit rewrites at 2x speed. This is old technology, and I am a little upset that this unit does not match the level of the rest of the machine, and they disguise this fact as best as possible. A serious user of DVD+RW might therefore have to fork out for a new unit that can handle 8x. The unit is manufactured by Sony, so of course it purposefully does not do DVD-RW and DVD-R, only +R and +RW. There are also no region free patches it seems, so one has to use a software solution to be able to watch films from other parts of the world. The writing software that comes with the unit is meant for amateur users. One really has to purchase Nero to get decent use from this DVD+RW writer.
The other BIG disappointment is the TV tuner accessory. It is preset in hardware to match the standard USA channels, NTSC only. So, the instant you leave the US border, you might as well throw the unit away. The increase in cost should they have included a fully tunable NTSC/PAL unit would have been minor, and so this is really inexcusable. This is a laptop, it is meant to travel. There are other TV tuners that provide this functionality that are compatible with WinXP Media Center edition, and I intend to get one soon.
Software-wise, the machine comes with loads of marketing garbage preinstalled - lots of trial versions, lots of things asking for money, for upgrades, for serial numbers. The solution to this is of course a complete format, and reinstallation of the OS, drivers, and a few useful applications. Follow this by updating windows online with service pack 2, and then by downloading available driver updates from the HP site. Then install the free AVG anti-virus program, Nero DVD burning software, MSOffice and you're pretty much done.
As for Linux users, this laptop is a lot "closer" to a desktop machine than other laptops I feel, so one should be able to get Linux up and running with few problems, and maybe even have most of the integrated peripherals working too. I do however have my doubts about Linux support for the integrated memory card reader. You should check this beforehand if it is important to you.
In summary, the ADVANTAGES are:
- fantastic screen and sound, and a great graphics card
- fast machine with loads of memory
- has all the necessary plugs and slots and features
- HP support, great website with all updates, etc
the DISADVANTAGES are:
- a useless TV tuner unless you will ever only be in the USA
- old technology DVD+RW writer
- heavy with a short battery life (2 hours max), but then again this is a desktop replacement, don't forget that
So, a five star rating, less one for the dud TV tuner and slow DVD+RW writer. Overall, I am thrilled with my purchase, and will be even more so when I get an international TV tuner. |
| Hewlett Packard Office - HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Notebook PC (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) | | Consumer Electronics |
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