HP Pavilion ZE5400 review I had the chance to review a new laptop the other day. I ordered it for a friend and before they used it they wanted all the nasty crap HP puts on the notebook off and put some antivirus software on and that kind of thing.

So I figured that while I had the machine I would go ahead and write up a review.

First off we’ll start out with some system specs. This machine is for a college student who doesn’t have a ton of cash to spend and needs something that will last for 4 years of high school. I was given a $1200 budget to purchase this machine and the final price when they get their rebates back from HP will be $1202. So here we go with the specs.

Intel P4M @ 2.4 GHZ with 512k of cache
256MB of DDR memory (the client plans to add another 256 after market)
14.1 TFT LCD Monitor
30GB HD
24X8X8X32 CD Combo Drive
32MB Video Memory

After we ordered it and got it via UPS 6 days later the first thing we noticed that this machine is beautiful! HP is paying attention to style and it shows! The blue LED lights on this machine give it a glow about it (excuse the pun). It has light for

Power Button
Shortcut buttons (Mail, Internet, Quicklock, TV, and Help/Support)
Front panel lights (Power on, HD, and AC power)

After pressing the power button I was almost blinded by all the light that came from this notebook. It sports a silver and blue look that has some matalic shades to it. The Altec Lancing speakers have a grill look to them and are located right under the hinges for the LCD.

As for portability – this machine isn’t what I would call an ultra portable. The machine is thick, much thinker than most modern notebooks. I didn’t get a measurement before I had to retrun the unit but I would say almost 2 inches think! But even for being that large it is just around 7 pounds, which isn’t bad if you plan on using a laptop bag.

As for the connectivity of this machine – it has it covered. It has the following ports.

1 X Firewire
3 X USB
1 X S-Video
1 X VGA Out
1 X PS2
1 X Parraell
1 X Serial
1 X Ethernet
1 X Modem
1 X IR port

Pros:

I love the look and feel of this machine. It draws a crowd. I was using it and had several comments on the machine. Even though it is big it still feels good on your lap, has a good keyboard and touch pad.

Cons:

Like I have said twice above, this is a large machine, nothingI would be taking around with me everywhere.

The IR port is on the front of the machine, if you use that port and need to transfer things to another notebook it would be a pain to use the machine and the IR port at the same time.

The fans on this machine run constantly. I know it has a fast CPU to cool but my Asus notebook is almost silent while running even on AC power. The machine keeps cool for the most part but I would rather have a little quiet warm machine.

As for speed. It’s a pretty quck little machine, while I had it I just did web surfing and the such and didn’t run any benchmarks on it.

As for batteries, it has a 8 cell Lithium Ion battery that lasted through about 3.5 hours of web surfing. That is plenty of a machine with the P4m in it.

Over all I really like this HP unit. It’s got speed and beautiy in the same package. If HP could get the size down on this machine I would say go buy one. But if you are on the move constantly and want a machine that can keep up with you without you needing a fork lift you might want to think about a Sony Vaio or some of the ultra portable Dell’s.

Price: $1300
Retailer: HP
Rating 4 out of 5 Posted by chris at 12:44 AM (0) Trackbacks