I have never really been into notebooks before, but after working at compusa for 6 months the temptation to buy a notebook with a little bit of power, and a little gaming potential has become too great. This is my first notebook/computer review, so if it sucks....im sorry.
-->Reason for buying:
I have been using a IBM Thinkpad 570 PII 333mhz, 128mb ram, 4 gb h/d (I know...but it was free) for about a year now for just general web surfing and class work. I figured it was time for something I could actually play some games on. I had been really interested in the 14 inchers coming out of HP/Compaq, but my AMD loyalties have kept me from purchasing one of the 2000/1000 series compaq's until now. Compaq has started to offer the V2000 with an AMD turion 64 processor, and I figured that I would give it a shot. Even though the video card (Radion Xpress 200M) is shared, I figured having the 2.0ghz Turion chip and 1280 mb's ram would allow me to play most pre-2003 action games with decent frame rates. I went ahead and ordered it from HPshopping two weeks ago. I opted for the 2.0ghz ML37 Turion 64 processor, 256mb ddr ram, 60gb 5400rpm h/d, DVD+-/RW drive, 802.11bg card, 12 cell battery, Windows XP home. Upgrading the ram directly from HP was a costly option so I stuck to purchasing a 1gb chip from compusa with my discount. Ordering was fairly flawless, and they even gave me a student discount. The bill came up to 959.99 shipped, which I thought was pretty decent. I was looking forward to ~5.8 lb, compact size, and the power of the AMD turion. It arrived earlier than expected last thursday at 10AM. I didn't even wake up till about 11:00 and I had a class at 12:00 so I had to hurry anyway. I saw the package sitting on the kitchen table and a ear to ear smile followed. I quickly unpacked the notebook and put it in my laptop bag and headed to school. Setup always takes forever on the HP notebooks from what I have seen, and this one was no different. It ran fairly smoothly through the initial with the 256 mb of ram, but I had planned on buying a 1gb dimm of ram from compusa. I stopped at work and got the extra ram it needed. When I got home I cleaned all the junk software off that HP had included to bolster performance some.
-->First impressions:
I noticed that the notebook with the battery in place weighed about 6 lbs....almost as heavy as a 15.4. This was sort of dissappointing, but I was looking forward to the 6 hour+ battery life that the HP rep had hinted to. WRONG, the ML37 is a power whore, and I am averaging around 4 to 4 1/2 hours with the WiFi off, and about half of that with the WiFi on. That is pretty pathetic after seeing the Pentium M V2000's getting nearly 7 hours of battery life with the WiFi off!!!! The speakers on this notebook are alright as speakers go, but nothing to scream about.
-->Gaming:
Recently I have been playing alot of original halife and counterstrike, and I loaded them both on the laptop. With the resolution set at 1024x768, Halflife was pretty laggy in both single player modes and lan modes. At 800x600, the v2000z runs halfife smoothly, but this is still very dissappointing considering halife came out in 1999. I was sort of scared to try anything more demanding after seeing how original halflife ran. However, I loaded battlefield 1942 anyhow. When I loaded BF1942 up I set the graphics to low and the resolution to 1024x768. I loaded the Berlin map and I was horrified to see now laggy it ran. I switched resolution to 800x600 and recieved a little better performance. I also find myself squinting somewhat at the smallish 14 inch screen. This is NOT a notebook for playing video games at all.
-->Exterior:
The touch pad is a pretty good size on these notebook, however about a day of use the scroll feature stopped working, and I have not been able to make it work despite trouble shooting. The status bar that shows CPU usage, Power, and power on/off is in front of the notebook, which is impossible to see in your lap. The power button is pretty wierd, and you have to press it down pretty hard to get it to do anything. I have also noticed that the optical drive sits pretty loose when open or closed, and makes a clicking noise when you pick up the notebook from it's side. Heat production under load isn't much though, and it never gets more than warm. The screen looks really nice, especially with the brightview that I had it come with. One problem with 14 inch widescreens I have noticed is how short the screen is. One roll on the optical mouse gets you halfway down a page past what you are trying to read...which gets very old quickly. It comes equipped with 3x USB ports, 1x firewire port, 1x vga, 1x S-video, 1x card reader, 1x Expantion port 2. The USB ports are also spread out with is pretty handy.
Pros:
-Screen looks rather crisp, and good is low light conditions.
-small footprint
-wireless card has good range
-good overall performance when not running graphics intensive programs
-lightweight power adapter
-Good position of USB ports
Cons:
-substandard gaming performance, even on dated games
-battery consumption is pretty horrific for a 14 inch notebook (you NEED the
12 cell battery to get any decent battery life.)
-pretty heavy for a 14 inch notebook when the 12 cell battery is installed
-Optical drive is fitted very loosly
-Response time of the LCD seems rather subpar
-The keyboard feels very cheap
:::Conclusion:::
Well, the ram has been removed and the notebook is packed up ready to go back to compaq. It was a waste of time getting a 14 inch notebook for the light weight and good battery life which was none-existant in this notebook. My 1100 dollars will be put aside and I will just have to look around a little bit more. Maybe others will enjoy this notebook more than I have, but be warned that the ML## series AMD Turion processors at 35 volts to not get very good battery life compared to the MT## AMD turions at 25 volts. MAKE SURE you get a MT## Turion if you plan on good battery life.
-->Reason for buying:
I have been using a IBM Thinkpad 570 PII 333mhz, 128mb ram, 4 gb h/d (I know...but it was free) for about a year now for just general web surfing and class work. I figured it was time for something I could actually play some games on. I had been really interested in the 14 inchers coming out of HP/Compaq, but my AMD loyalties have kept me from purchasing one of the 2000/1000 series compaq's until now. Compaq has started to offer the V2000 with an AMD turion 64 processor, and I figured that I would give it a shot. Even though the video card (Radion Xpress 200M) is shared, I figured having the 2.0ghz Turion chip and 1280 mb's ram would allow me to play most pre-2003 action games with decent frame rates. I went ahead and ordered it from HPshopping two weeks ago. I opted for the 2.0ghz ML37 Turion 64 processor, 256mb ddr ram, 60gb 5400rpm h/d, DVD+-/RW drive, 802.11bg card, 12 cell battery, Windows XP home. Upgrading the ram directly from HP was a costly option so I stuck to purchasing a 1gb chip from compusa with my discount. Ordering was fairly flawless, and they even gave me a student discount. The bill came up to 959.99 shipped, which I thought was pretty decent. I was looking forward to ~5.8 lb, compact size, and the power of the AMD turion. It arrived earlier than expected last thursday at 10AM. I didn't even wake up till about 11:00 and I had a class at 12:00 so I had to hurry anyway. I saw the package sitting on the kitchen table and a ear to ear smile followed. I quickly unpacked the notebook and put it in my laptop bag and headed to school. Setup always takes forever on the HP notebooks from what I have seen, and this one was no different. It ran fairly smoothly through the initial with the 256 mb of ram, but I had planned on buying a 1gb dimm of ram from compusa. I stopped at work and got the extra ram it needed. When I got home I cleaned all the junk software off that HP had included to bolster performance some.
-->First impressions:
I noticed that the notebook with the battery in place weighed about 6 lbs....almost as heavy as a 15.4. This was sort of dissappointing, but I was looking forward to the 6 hour+ battery life that the HP rep had hinted to. WRONG, the ML37 is a power whore, and I am averaging around 4 to 4 1/2 hours with the WiFi off, and about half of that with the WiFi on. That is pretty pathetic after seeing the Pentium M V2000's getting nearly 7 hours of battery life with the WiFi off!!!! The speakers on this notebook are alright as speakers go, but nothing to scream about.
-->Gaming:
Recently I have been playing alot of original halife and counterstrike, and I loaded them both on the laptop. With the resolution set at 1024x768, Halflife was pretty laggy in both single player modes and lan modes. At 800x600, the v2000z runs halfife smoothly, but this is still very dissappointing considering halife came out in 1999. I was sort of scared to try anything more demanding after seeing how original halflife ran. However, I loaded battlefield 1942 anyhow. When I loaded BF1942 up I set the graphics to low and the resolution to 1024x768. I loaded the Berlin map and I was horrified to see now laggy it ran. I switched resolution to 800x600 and recieved a little better performance. I also find myself squinting somewhat at the smallish 14 inch screen. This is NOT a notebook for playing video games at all.
-->Exterior:
The touch pad is a pretty good size on these notebook, however about a day of use the scroll feature stopped working, and I have not been able to make it work despite trouble shooting. The status bar that shows CPU usage, Power, and power on/off is in front of the notebook, which is impossible to see in your lap. The power button is pretty wierd, and you have to press it down pretty hard to get it to do anything. I have also noticed that the optical drive sits pretty loose when open or closed, and makes a clicking noise when you pick up the notebook from it's side. Heat production under load isn't much though, and it never gets more than warm. The screen looks really nice, especially with the brightview that I had it come with. One problem with 14 inch widescreens I have noticed is how short the screen is. One roll on the optical mouse gets you halfway down a page past what you are trying to read...which gets very old quickly. It comes equipped with 3x USB ports, 1x firewire port, 1x vga, 1x S-video, 1x card reader, 1x Expantion port 2. The USB ports are also spread out with is pretty handy.
Pros:
-Screen looks rather crisp, and good is low light conditions.
-small footprint
-wireless card has good range
-good overall performance when not running graphics intensive programs
-lightweight power adapter
-Good position of USB ports
Cons:
-substandard gaming performance, even on dated games
-battery consumption is pretty horrific for a 14 inch notebook (you NEED the
12 cell battery to get any decent battery life.)
-pretty heavy for a 14 inch notebook when the 12 cell battery is installed
-Optical drive is fitted very loosly
-Response time of the LCD seems rather subpar
-The keyboard feels very cheap
:::Conclusion:::
Well, the ram has been removed and the notebook is packed up ready to go back to compaq. It was a waste of time getting a 14 inch notebook for the light weight and good battery life which was none-existant in this notebook. My 1100 dollars will be put aside and I will just have to look around a little bit more. Maybe others will enjoy this notebook more than I have, but be warned that the ML## series AMD Turion processors at 35 volts to not get very good battery life compared to the MT## AMD turions at 25 volts. MAKE SURE you get a MT## Turion if you plan on good battery life.
