Hewlett Packard Pavilion zv5000 (559158) PC Notebook

Pros: Good power, great display, nice innovations, decent battery
Cons: Big n' bulky

It came as no surprise that Best Buy gave me a new laptop following what I refer to as “the incident.” Basically, I dropped my laptop purchased in December 2002 (a Toshiba Satellite 1905-S301) on the floor and both the LCD screen and PCMCIA ...

Pros: Wide screen, large keyboard, fairly fast, solid construction.
Cons: Poor instructions, poor (bad) web site registration

I will start with the good things. The wide screen is beautiful, clear and crisp. With the wide body design, typing is a pleasure on this one, no cramped fingers. The Radeon 9000 graphics card helps a lot. The wireless 802.11g network support is ...

Pros: Bright display, Widescreen, Athlon64, Great Speakers, lots of connections available, ability to switch off touchpad.
Cons: Big screen, weight, slow (4200 RPM) hard drive, clunky power adaptor

Buying a laptop (on a budget) out of need instead of desire is very different from shopping for high end machines. Unfortunately, this was where I placed myself a year after buying a Dell lemon. My old laptop from Dell had great specs (Pent4 2.8Ghz, ...

Pros: runs fast, looks really nice (except when crumbs get stuck in the speaker panels)
Cons: power supply dislodges easily; short battery life; not exactly portable

When I first bought my laptop, I was eighteen and remained an inexperienced consumer when it came to higher end products, like technology and cars (I bought the first car that my parents agreed to cosign on..."no, dad! we don't need to research it! i ...

Pros: Big screen, ample processing power. Good customer support via email or chat.
Cons: not enough memory,poor battery. Powercord falls out. paint wears out

I thought I would write this article about how they hold up after the "new" is gone. I have had mine since July 04. It's a zv5160 2.8ghz(no ht) no flash media slots, or firewire. I am a soldier deployed in Iraq and it is holding up pretty good. Mind you ...

Pros: Good sound, good graphics, durability, price.
Cons: WEIGHT, battery life, power consumption

I've had this computer since 2004 only problem was the DVD drive quit replaced it myself for $53. It is heavy and cumbersome if you do any traveling I would suggest a lighter computer. Never had a power cord problem, and after 4 years the battery ...

Pros: Works great until warranty expires
Cons: Supposed to be "powerful" machine, but powers down for no reason

Power problem is THE problem in this machine. And it starts exactly after the warranty expires. You call HP and talk to them - they would gently and politely say "Your warranty has expired, and therefore, if we need to talk further, we will charge your ...

Pros: Very quick startup and overall speed, quality feel and construction.
Cons: Battery life is average, probably better performance with a mobile processor option. (higher price)

I define average user as; word processing, e-mail, internet surfing, occasional game, photo editing. I normally love to buy things I simply do not need, I like overkill just in case I may need it later. However when I was pondering the purchase of a 17" ...

Pros: Strong construction, sturdy keyboard.
Cons: Heavy.
The common power connector issue.

Its the end of 2009, and I'm reviewing this notebook I bought 5 years ago. I'm doing this because this notebook has been a total workhorse, and has literally taken a beating. In 2005, I bought this notebook in the U.S. and took it with me when ...

Pros: Fast, easy to upgrade, dependable, great screen
Cons: Poor battery life

After using various different laptops, and purchasing my HP zv5000 for $800 as a refurbished unit, it has been my main computer, outlasting (and outshining) the others. I have not had the power jack problems others have mentioned, and only had the ...

Pros: Processor Performance
Cons: **^^SEE ABOVE^^**

I bought this laptop in August 2004 and have had NOTHING but problems with it. Although it was very powerful with a Pentium 4 processor, it was nothing better then ANY of HP's products. It ran VERY hot, the battery, power supply and fans caused 1st and ...

Pros: widescreen, decent number of ports(firewire, media card, s-video apart from USBs)
Cons: Lousy power jack, warranty, hard drive, software, display, build quality.

This was my first HP laptop and will probably be my last.

It was heavy, the display had blank spots after a while, the power jack was a joke and battery life sucked.

Oh, it is heavy, did I mention that?

The hard disk died after exactly 18 months of use and even SpinRite could do little to recover data from this.

The biggest downer was the power jack. After about 2-3 months of use, it became an adventure to connect the laptop to a power source reliably. You'll have to wiggle the jack just right, put it under the desk and so on.

A horror story, stay away

Pros: nice widescreen, media connector (lifesaver for bad AC jack), & 3 USB jacks
Cons: Touchpad too far right, fans cannot breath, AC adapter jack wears out, & horrible support.

I sincerely hope HP goes out of business. Their support the past few years has been ok, but now they expect you to pay for it. I spoke to someone from India about my bad power jack on my zv5000, and the whole time he pressured me to pay for a support specialist. Furthermore, they no longer offer an extended warranty for this PC. I have fixed the jack once (one month after the warranty expired). The tech told me then to get an extended warranty. I waited too long, and now they don't offer one....and get this....the only thing they offer is a telephone support program for one year for $99. Are you kidding??? I read where the XC1000 media cable is the perfect fix for the problem. Once again, HP does not offer the cable any more. surprise surprise. This is absolutely the last HP product I'll ever buy!

Pros: Sound, graphics, wide screen, many ports
Cons: Power cord falls out too easily

I purchased my HP zv5000 in May 2004 and have gotten a lot of great use out of it. It has a lot of connections i.e. USB ports, good sound quality, and great graphics/screen. I prefer using this laptop to watch DVDs than I do my flat screen TV! It's fast and sturdy. I'm pretty rough with my laptop and it's stood up to lots of carrying without a case, swinging, plopping, etc.

The only issue I have is that the power cord falls out of the laptop easily, so I'm always checking to make sure it's plugged in.

Pros: Great graphics great sound easy to use if you have basic knowledge of computers.
Cons: Battery life not as expected. Heavy.

This laptop is great for watching DVD's. Only problem is that you have to have it hooked up to AC adaptor in order to watch the entire movie. Battery seems to not last as long as advertised. Batteries are just too expensive to have to have a backup. I really enjoy my laptop and love playing games on them. One other thing I have a real problem with is saving images. When I right click and choose "save picture as", I can save it as an ART or BMP image. When I go to look at it later, there is nothing there. I can apparently only save JPGs. Another problem is the use of the mousepad on the keyboard. If it is activated and you accidentally brush across it while typing, your cursor is moved. Very aggravating when you are typing something important. That is why I have taken to using a mouse with this computer.