HP Pavillion vs Compaq

There are no significant differences between the Hp and the compaq versions, other than the case design and the speakers.The HP has Harman Kardons & the Compaq has JBL.(both of them good).
There is a price difference between any HP/Compaq product(configure any desktop/laptop - there will be a slight difference). I think they are there just to differentiate between the 2 products.

HP makes "HP" branded laptops... So the Compaq's are the ones which end up being cheaper.
Some people like the HP case design,some like the compaq...Its just about personal preference.

Well after HP took over Compaq...alot of the laptops that have come out of thier factories are very similiar. But I guess the biggest difference is the fact that one is much larger then the other. And to certain people cost-to-performance isn't much of a big deal. See how people a certain type of shoe or material because it costs more...a.k.a Jordan 7's when they are the ugliest things on earth!

Beg to differ. :)

There are significant differences as HP are better quality but more expensive. When HP and Compaq merged, Hewlett-Packard's (HP) (unspoken/non-public) intention was to continue their own line of products as well as a cheaper version/model of their more popular and/or desired models. They succeeded, however, most people have found that the desktops and laptops branded with only the HP logo are more dependable, have better components, etc. However, most of the time, but not always, Compaq is perfectly fine.

Go with the one you prefer. They are, for the most part, the same company.

Mcyi meant that HP is a larger part of the HP/Compaq merged company.

I have to disagree. HP continued the Compaq line due to brand loyalty. The Compaq Presario brand was very well known and they did not want to lose customers because of that. You can also notice that their business laptop range have both HP-Compaq names. They wanted to expand their market share by retaining customers of both HP & Compaq.

Yes the compaq r3340us has an athlon 64 processor inside. The ZV5000Z(Now ZV6000) and the R3000Z all have AMD chips inside and are also custom configurable with the 64bit as well as the XP-M chips.

Its a very fine laptop and for my needs it gets the job done. The laptop does not run hot at all! Infact it is one of the cooler running desktop replacement laptops around. During regular use (surfing, word doc's) the temperatures hover around 35-45C. When the processor is under maximum usage the temp rise to around 55-60C.

I would not call it a great laptop but it is a good laptop and it performs excellent in all but one area i.e. gaming, the Geforce4 440Go is simply outdated. Yes it is much better than any integrated solution but in this day & age there are other options which outrun it.
Granted I am just an occacional gamer but still I would at least like to have a decent GPU. The other gripe with the laptop is that its a bit heavy than what I would have liked(especially since there are other lighter laptops in the market).

Now for the good things about the laptop - IMO the screen is just gorgeous. The high contrast and glossy screen is irresistable. The build quality is also amazing(better than I expected) especially after my previous laptop(toshiba) had bad build quality.No problem with the hinges and they are solid even after 6 months of daily usage. The computer handles almost everything that I have thrown at it and performs very well. You wont get the best benchmarking results(due to weak GPU) but overall it responds quickly. It calculated the Pi(Super Pi) result to the 2millionth digit in 1m 40s. It also has one of the best speakers in the market(for a laptop). Granted it cannot beat any desktop/large speakers but has pretty good bass and there is no/very little distortion at high volumes.

I am more than satisfied with the performance of the laptop considering it has many good things going for it. The ZV6000 or the yet to be released R4000 is a decent improvement over the previous generation and correct some of the weakness(better GPU). If the specifications of the laptop is on equal terms with the desktop(CPU, GPU, RAM, HD speed) I think performance between the 2 should be pretty close.

Yes, the gpu in the zv6000(Radeon 128MB dedicated) will out perform the geforce 440. and also they use the newer versions of the processor(has better thermal properties).

Regarding whether HP is a better option than Compaq...I dont believe one is better than the other. Both are made by the same manufacturer probably in the same factory...and the interior components are all the same. The only difference being the case design & the speakers.

I think the newer gpu will be able to perform better on all the tasks you list.

If you are interested in the HP then the ZV6000 is the best option...
If you want Compaq - the r3000z(right now) but recommend you wait for the r4000 which probably will be released soon..
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...name=c00307642

buy ram from newegg and upgrade it yourself. All manufactorers rip you off on ram, now that average joe knows ram is good.