HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Laptop (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive)

by HP

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 13.3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00064NXM2
• Item model number: PM021UA#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 24, 2004

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The message is the media with HP's Pavilion zd7380us Media Center notebook, which acts as your portable, in-home entertainment center. You'll be able to watch and record your favorite TV programs, easily edit digital video, and create your own CDs and DVDs. This powerful notebook features a fast 3.2 GHz hyper-threaded Intel Pentium 4 processor, 80 GB hard drive, 512 MB of installed RAM, a top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce FX Go5700 video card, 54g wi-fi connectivity, 17-inch screen, and a combo DVD+RW and CD-RW drvie.

The Basics

• Hard Drive: The 80 GB hard drive is larger than the average notebook's, enabling road warriors and multimedia enthusiasts more than enough capacity for storing documents, digital media files, and productivity software.
• Processor: The hyper-threaded 3.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor allows a single CPU system to behave in some aspects like a dual-CPU system, helping to deliver faster transistors and increased performance. It also features a 1 MB L2 cache and a blazingly fast 800 MHz front-side bus speed

  A Hyper-Threading processor helps a PC to run multiple demanding applications at the same time. This technology enables the processor to execute two threads (a part of a program) in parallel, boosting performance during key high-drain procedures. This results in more efficient software performance (such as faster reaction times in gaming applications) and enhanced multitasking.

• Memory: The 512 MB of built-in memory (2 x 256 MB, 333 MHz, DDR SDRAM) is a good start for power users. It has two memory slots in total, with a maximum memory expansion up to 2 GB (2 x 1024 MB)--a must for taking full advantage of this notebook's multimedia capabilities.
• CD/DVD Drive: It is equipped with a combo DVD+/-RW and CD-RW drive. For DVD-RW discs, it has a 1x write/rewrite speed, while for DVD+RW discs it has a 2x write/rewrite speed (DVDs are read at 5x). For CDs, it has a 16x write/8x rewrite/24x read speed.
• Keyboard & Mouse: This notebook has a standard keyboard with scroll bar and integrated numeric keypad, and a touchpad with on/off button and dedicated vertical scroll up/down pad.

Sound and Graphics
The Nvidia GeForce FX Go5700 supports playback of high-definition content for the best video quality available for a notebook. You'll enjoy an immersive cinematic experience when playing back DVDs as well as smooth gameplay. It features 128 MB of dedicated DDR video RAM. The 17-inch WXGA high-definition BrightView widescreen display has a 1440 x 900-pixel resolution. The integrated audio card offers 16-bit Sound Blaster Pro-compatible audio through the internal Harman Kardon speakers.

Connectivity and Expansion Slots
The zd7380us has an integrated 54g wireless LAN that's fully compatible with 802.11b/g wireless networks. The 125 HSM/SpeedBooster support will enable it to be ready for tomorrow's 125 Mbps wireless LANs. You get a good offering of connectivity options, including super-fast USB 2.0 and Firewire:

• 4 USB 2.0 ports for connecting a wide range of peripherals--from digital cameras to MP3 players
• 1 FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) port for connecting digital video camcorders and other peripherals
• 1 VGA monitor port
• 1 S-Video out and 1 S-Video in
• 1 RCA video in
• 2 RCA audio in
• 1 fast infrared (IR) port
• 1 parallel port
• 1 PCMCIA (or PC Card) slot (Type I/II, 32-bit)
• 5-in-1 memory card reader (compatible with Secure Digital, MultiMedia, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, and SmartMedia)
• 1 headphone jack and 1 microphone jack

With the assortment of video connections, you can hook up a video camera, DVD player, or VCR, or easily output to a TV. It also has an integrated 56K modem (V.90) and an RJ-45 LAN network port (for a 10/100 Ethernet connection to networks and DSL/cable modems).

Preloaded System and Software
The pre-installed Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is essentially Windows XP Professional Edition with a variety of tools to help you to create, organize, and enjoy digital media ranging from music to home movies to photo slide shows. Additionally, it enables you to control your television with the included remote and record and pause programs (much like a DVR--or digital video recorder--such as Tivo or ReplayTV). With the 80 GB hard drive, you'll be able to record and store up to 60 hours of video programming. It's compatible with cable, digital cable, satellite TV and antenna inputs, and it includes an FM tuner.

The included HP Image Zone Plus photo and imaging software makes it easy to organize, edit, share, print, protect, and store your photos and video clips. Organize and find your photos easily by timeline, keywords, and/or location using the unique photo-globe mapping tool. Remove red eye and fix other common problems. Share your photos quickly via e-mails that include thumbnails with links to the full-sized images--without downloading time-consuming attachments.

Other preloaded software includes InterVideo WinDVD Creator and WinDVD SE player, Apple iTunes, Sonic RecordNow, Norton AntiVirus 2004 and Personal Firewall 2004 (with 60 days of live updates), Microsoft Works 7.0, MSN Encarta Standard, Microsoft Money, and Quicken 2004 New User Edition.

Dimensions and Weight
At 9.5 pounds, the zd7380 isn't the most easily portable notebook, and is best served as a desktop replacement. It measures 15.67 x 10.94 x 1.67 inches (L x W x H).

Power
It's powered by a 12-cell rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which provides an average of battery life of around 2 hours (depending on usage).

What's in the Box
This package contains the HP Pavilion zd7380us notebook PC, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, AC adapter, and operating instructions. It is backed by a one-year limiited hardware warranty.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review for advanced users, December 3, 2004

By 

Digilante - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Laptop (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

This review is aimed at an advanced user who will want to use this as a desktop replacement for serious work, or serious gaming for that matter.

My decision to purchase this model was largely swayed by the screen. A 17" widescreen display running at a resolution of 1680 by 1050 is something to behold. This is definitely the best screen I have seen yet, and completely kicks my old 1600 by 1280 CRT monitor. There is just no comparison. Four weeks later, and I still say "wow" each time I power up the beast.

The display is well backed up by the Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 card with 128 megs DDR. For pure gaming, I am constantly blown away by Half-Life 2 running at the full 1680*1050 at highest quality settings. Gameplay is smooth and the display crisp, however in large and busy scenes one can notice a slight lag in response. For this reason, it would have been nice if they had put in 256 megs on the card, as seems to be the standard these days. Note that this is a desktop-equivalent graphics card, and so all the top PC games should run just fine.

The 1 gig of RAM and the 3.2 GHz processor pair up to provide quick and smooth work under Windows XP. Firing up MSOffice or compiling reams of code is appropriately fast, and I am more than happy with the performance of the unit.

Before I forget, the Harman Kardon speakers are very impressive. The sound compares very well with a pair of quality bookshelf speakers and is definitely the best stuff that I have heard coming out of a laptop. Of course, they cannot compare with a pair of good hi-fi speakers.

All the standard plugs and ports aside, the digital media memory card reader is a welcome addition, as are the four networking possibilities in the built in modem, network, wireless and firewire units. Bluetooth is missing... a pity, but the unit does provide IrDA, so I can use that to talk to my mobile phone.

A disappointment is the DVD+RW drive. You can tear through a hundred websites and manuals but nowhere does it say what speeds this unit operates at. Finally, I queried this directly with HP to be told that for DVD+RW the unit rewrites at 2x speed. This is old technology, and I am a little upset that this unit does not match the level of the rest of the machine, and they disguise this fact as best as possible. A serious user of DVD+RW might therefore have to fork out for a new unit that can handle 8x. The unit is manufactured by Sony, so of course it purposefully does not do DVD-RW and DVD-R, only +R and +RW. There are also no region free patches it seems, so one has to use a software solution to be able to watch films from other parts of the world. The writing software that comes with the unit is meant for amateur users. One really has to purchase Nero to get decent use from this DVD+RW writer.

The other BIG disappointment is the TV tuner accessory. It is preset in hardware to match the standard USA channels, NTSC only. So, the instant you leave the US border, you might as well throw the unit away. The increase in cost should they have included a fully tunable NTSC/PAL unit would have been minor, and so this is really inexcusable. This is a laptop, it is meant to travel. There are other TV tuners that provide this functionality that are compatible with WinXP Media Center edition, and I intend to get one soon.

Software-wise, the machine comes with loads of marketing garbage preinstalled - lots of trial versions, lots of things asking for money, for upgrades, for serial numbers. The solution to this is of course a complete format, and reinstallation of the OS, drivers, and a few useful applications. Follow this by updating windows online with service pack 2, and then by downloading available driver updates from the HP site. Then install the free AVG anti-virus program, Nero DVD burning software, MSOffice and you're pretty much done.

As for Linux users, this laptop is a lot "closer" to a desktop machine than other laptops I feel, so one should be able to get Linux up and running with few problems, and maybe even have most of the integrated peripherals working too. I do however have my doubts about Linux support for the integrated memory card reader. You should check this beforehand if it is important to you.

In summary, the ADVANTAGES are:

- fantastic screen and sound, and a great graphics card

- fast machine with loads of memory

- has all the necessary plugs and slots and features

- HP support, great website with all updates, etc

the DISADVANTAGES are:

- a useless TV tuner unless you will ever only be in the USA

- old technology DVD+RW writer

- heavy with a short battery life (2 hours max), but then again this is a desktop replacement, don't forget that

So, a five star rating, less one for the dud TV tuner and slow DVD+RW writer. Overall, I am thrilled with my purchase, and will be even more so when I get an international TV tuner.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars astonishing laptop, May 12, 2005

By 

W. Burk "DubyaB" (Bay Area Nor-Cal) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Laptop (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

Im a newb to the laptop market but did alot of research before I picked up the zd7380. This laptop is incredible! picture, sound, full size keyboard. I run doom 3 at full 1680 32 bit graphics without a hickup! I did think about buying a $800 entry level laptop...but you know how it goes, you end up buying things twice if you dont purchase what really want. I have the tv tuner set up with my satellite tv and have all types of movies and shows recorded on it, the media center downloads the program guide wirelessly, I love it! Yes its a little heavy, yes the battery life is 2 hours, and yes the dvd burner is slow.....Those 3 things are really worth compromising for the power you get with this laptop. I dont burn dvd's on my laptop, I have a cheap power inverter in my suv that I plug my laptop into. As for a carry on when traveling abroad..no problem 15 pounds or so (battery included) so worth it! If I was to do it all over again I would of just purchased the 8010 model for a couple hundred more. The dual tv tuner would of been sweet! Good Luck with your purchase and hope this helped.

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't reformat your hard drive, December 14, 2005

By 

Just another reviewer (Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP Pavilion zd7380us Media Center Laptop (Intel Pentium 4 Processor with HT Technology, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, DVD+/-RW/CD-RW Drive) (Personal Computers)

You do not have to reformat your hard drive to get rid of annoying programs that automatically run at startup. Formating your hard drive for that reason makes as much sense as tearing down and rebuilding your house to fix a squeaky door.
(...)
i own two media center notebooks and they emit a lot of heat. i recommend running any notebook with a cooler. i use bytecc. it is metal and inexpensive. do not buy a plastic cooler! to run a notebook without a cooler - you might as well set fire to it and get it over with. the new computer chips run so hot, you must add a cooling factor or you are burning up your investment.