Compaq R3000Z vs HP ZV6000

Well, I have been doing some searching and reading on here for a little while now, and I just need a bit of advice. My Sony Vaio recently crapped out on me, and I am in the market for something new. It will mainly be for surfing the net, burning stuff, word/excel stuff, some photoshop and maybe some games. Now, I don't play anything real intense gamewise, just Roller Coaster Tycoon and Casino Tycoon. Basically, any game I play ran just fine on my AMD Athlon 4 1.2Ghz w/ 8mb ATI card. I have looked around locally, but I don't think there is any way that I can get a better deal at a store than just ordering online. I get a discount on HP/Compaq thru work, and here is what I have come up with:

Compaq Presario R3000Z customizable Notebook PC - Built by April 28th
- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
- AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3700+ (2.40 GHz)
- 15.4" WVA WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
- 64MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(TM) 4 440 Go + 1394
- 512MB DDR SDRAM (1x512MB)
- 100 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
- DVD+/-RW/R & CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer Support
- 54g(TM) Integ. Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works/Money
- hpshopping in-box envelope
$1,404.26 after rebates
The only thing I might change would be going for the 80gb 5400rpm drive, which would knock off . I also plan on getting another 512mb stick of ram after I get it, because I know I can find some Kingston value ram for less than the $100 more it would cost me from them.

CTO Pavilion zv6000 series notebook - built by May 19th
- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
- AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3500+ (2.2GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
- 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800)
- 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/Hypermemory(TM)
- 512MB DDR SDRAM (1x512MB)
- 80 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
- 8X DVD +/- RW/R & CD-RW Combo Drive
- 54g(TM) Integ. Broadcom 802.11b/g WLAN & Bluetooth
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works/Money
- hpshopping in-box envelope
$1,539.62 after rebates
This has a better video card, but slower processor and isn't a dual layer burner. I would do the same thing for memory on this one.

Now, this seems like a complete no brainer for me. Both of them have free shipping and no tax for me on them. The Compaq just blows away the HP (even though they are the same company) in just about everything. But, the HP also includes a $500 instant rebate. Why is the HP so much more from the get go? Is it that far superior in some way. I have read people saying their R3000Z's are great machines, but did not see too much on the HP. Just looking for a little advice here on the matter. Thanks for reading and for any responses.

How much different was it. Does it have the Athlon 64 3700+, 15.4" WVA WSXGA+, and dual layer burner?

Would you still do this if you never played games though? I really don't foresee playing any games that would require a lot more gpu power. Like I said before, my old system with an 8mb ATI card handled everything I do just fine.

Good info, thanks. This just makes me want to wait until Sunday's ad and go buy one in the store on sale rather than deal with waiting 5 weeks for the HP to get here.

The more I think about this, I am sure that the Compaq would run fine with the installed video card even with the new version of Windows. Microsoft would not make it so that it will run crappy if you don't have a brand new computer. People would not buy it if they had to get a new computer just to run Longhorn. I can understand that it may not be up to the full potential of one that can run directx 9, but I am sure for my uses, it would run alright.

Sorry for all of the questions, but do you have any idea when the R4000 series will be released? That has basically everything I want except the wsxga+ display. I would be all over that if it were out right now.

As I have been looking at these more, one other thing that I noticed is that the zv6000 does not offer the wsxga+ display. I am wondering if they will do away with it on the R4000Z, as well? I would be fine with the newer version of the athlon 64 that is 3500+ instead of 3700+ like the zv6000 has, but I would really like the higher res screen. From the r4025us page that I see, it lists the 1280X800 screen, but not the 1680X1050 one, although that is a preconfigured one. This is making it a harder decision. There is no chance they will have both of them up there for awhile is there?

Well, I called them and talked to a guy, and all he said he saw for an option for the R4000Z series was the 1280X800 display. So I pulled the trigger and bought the R3000Z as listed above w/80gb 5400rpm drive. The graphics card just isn't enough to prevent me from getting it. It is everything that I want. Plus the guy got me a 10 pack of dvdr's and a double layer blank too, and an extra $15 off. My total ended up being $1395 plus $30 mail-in. I am happy with that.

Thanks to all for your help, I appreciate it. It will ship May 3rd, I will post up my thoughts when I get it.

Yeah, I saw that in the ad this weekend. The thing I am sure it does not have is the high res screen, pretty sure it was 1280X800. Plus I got mine for less, especially when you consider that would have $100 in taxes added to it.