HP Pavilion ZV6000

I am a big fan of touchpads. (I had significant problems trying to use a pointing stick on IBM Thinkpads; I'm just not one of those people who can get the cursor to go where I want it to go using a pointing stick.) The location of the ZV6000's touchpad is perfect for me the center of the wrist rest. That's where my hands are usually positioned while typing. If you're someone who would prefer to plug in a mouse, HP has made it very easy to turn off the touchpad; there's a key above it that can be depressed to turn it off.

I do think that HP ZV6000 could have used a standard keyboard layout, rather than repositioning many often used keys, such as delete, page up, page down, etc. Also, the keys themselves are a little shallow and I sometimes find myself typing fast enough that it feels like my fingers are catching on adjacent keys and that they might come off. The wrist rest is a strong selling feature for me. (I believe it helps reduce the risk of carpel tunnel syndrome for those like me who type a lot throughout the day.)

The expansion port accommodates a docking station connector for HP's XB2000 Expansion Base, a fairly beefy holder that has a rubber base that holds the open notebook at a adjustable angle while raising the screen to desktop-monitor height. Rather than typing on the laptops elevated keyboard you can use a Logitech cordless keyboard and optical mouse supplied with the base.

The receiver for the wireless equipment plugs into one of the bases USB 2.0 ports. There is also a modem, Ethernet, S/PDIF, TV-out, and S-Video out ports, along with a port for the AC adapter (which enables you to charge the HP Pavilion ZV6000 battery while docked). There are also Harmon Kardon stereo speakers on the front which given the basic speakers on the laptop itself a boost as they are sub par at best. The major drawback however for the docking station is the hefty 250 USD sticker price (400 for one that has a 160GB hard disk included).

HP Pavilion ZV6000  Screen

Another bonus is the screen. Though I kick myself now for not getting the BrightView option (it saved money not to), the 15.4" wide screen is a pleasure. Lines are crisp and the contrast is good. I had to adjust it a bit in the Windows Display Properties "Advanced Settings," but after I got the contrast set up just right, the Fn key on the keyboard has two buttons (F7 & F8) for adjusting brightness on the fly. I was a little surprised by the resolutions given by the preinstalled driver. 1280 x 800 is the native resolution so I figured that it would have other widescreen adapted resolutions. Nope. Standard 800 x 600 and on up are the only other options. After installing the latest Catalyst drivers I got some higher resolutions, but nothing above 1280 x 800 is really useful because it doesn't scale to fit the screen.

HP Pavilion ZV6000  Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is nice enough. I haven't used that many laptop keyboards, but all the keys are easily reachable on this one and not too bunched together. The only complaint I have is that the mouse scroll bar is directly under my right hand. This causes the page I'm typing on to move around intermittently. But! The folks at HP created a magic little button that turns off the touchpad, for this exact reason I assume. The virtual scroll zones are nice for vertical and horizontal scrolling.

HP Pavilion ZV6000  Performance 

The Athlon 64 3200+ is an amazing processor. I have edited video, recorded professional quality audio, and just surfed the Internet and it does it all without missing a beat. Boot time is about 90 seconds or more with all of the included software, but I have reduced this to about 30 after a fresh reinstall of the operating system. This is with a 4,200 RPM hard drive. A faster drive with a bigger cache and more RAM especially would certainly produce better results. I am not a gamer, so I cannot tell you how well it plays the newest games.

HP Pavilion ZV6000  Sound

The speakers are nothing special. I think they replaced the Harmon-Kardons that are typical with HPs with some generic, low-cost 2" x 1" speakers. They don't necessarily sound bad, but I have to put the Master and Wave levels close to max to get volume where it needs to be. I recommend an external set of speakers, though, if you're going to keep it at a desk. The headphone and mic jacks work fine.

HP Pavilion ZV6000  Battery

I got the 12-cell battery, and I have been very pleased with it so far. I ran it down the day after receiving my notebook and it took a solid four hours to get the battery drained. I ran MobileMeter (http://dssc3031.ece.cmu.edu/~tamaru/mobilemeter/mobilemeterreadme-e.htm) and the new battery already registers as having 5% wear. I assume this 5% is simply lost through the chemical breakdown in the battery. The 12-cell LI-ON batteries that I ordered with the ZV6000. I have been able to get between 2.5 - 3 hours with one of the batteries. I don't work that often on battery and I know batteries are the most short-lived part on a notebook computer. (I have a wonderful Micron laptop that is now a desktop because I can no longer get batteries for it.) I know that at some point down the road that I'll need to replace the OEM batteries for this unit and I hope that they're available for a significantly long period of time.

HP Pavilion ZV6000  Wireless

Adding the 128MB 200m ATI card is one of the best options on this computer because it means an automatic upgrade to a 6-in-1 memory card reader and an IEEE 1394 port. There are also four USB 2.0 ports, 1 x PCMCIA, 1x Express 54 slot (w/ 128mb video card upgrade), 10/100 LAN, 56k modem, 7pin S-video, 15-pin analog video out, and headphone/microphone jacks. There is no parallel port, which is almost useless these days, anyway. One thing I wish it had is VIVO. I would like to be able to capture video without the use of an external device, but it can't have everything for the price it is I guess. Built-in Wireless G with 108 MB/s access is an additional option that I did not include. Bluetooth comes with this package. I just didn't feel I would have enough of a use for this because I don't have any Bluetooth devices, and I already have a USB based Wireless antenna card.

HP Pavilion ZV6000 Input and Output Ports

There are 4 USB 2.0 ports on the ZV6000. Here's how they're laid out: 1 on the back, 2 on the left side and 1 on the right side. The ZV6000 has a 1394 device connection port, which is located on the right side and an S-Video jack to connect to a TV, which is also on the right side. Personally, I do miss the inclusion of older, legacy ports since I have some older devices that I use and would like to connect to this computer a Rocket e-book and a clam style handheld. For now I'll use them on the other computers on my network. Ultimately, I'll probably buy one of the USB devices that provide a parallel port and several serial ports.