Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion ze4145 Laptop (1.53 GHz AMD Athlon XP 1800+, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After researching different laptops for a couple of weeks I found that the HP Pavilion ze4145 was the best!! After rebates the price was hard to beat. The AMD Athlon processor is a screemer! DVDs run as smooth as on TV, and the CDRW drive works without a hitch. I've used many a laptop in my day, but this was the one I bought. 512MB RAM, 40GB Hard drive and a 15" screen were all big selling points. This machine also runs a lot cooler than some I've used in the past. I would recommend the ze4145 to anyone looking for a powerful machine!

I needed a well rounded, powerful, notebook PC that would be as comfortable in our networked environment at our design firm, as it would be in my lap on the weekends. At the office, I easily run applications such as Dreamweaver, Fireworks, QuarkXpress, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, Powerpoint and even Photoshop. After work hours and on weekends, I can send my e-mails, work on our invoices in Quickbooks, or on rare occasions, relax and watch a DVD! This is really a well built notebook. Here are the PROS and CONS in my opinion.

PROS
- Very good screen size. The thinkpad and DELL users that I have come in contact with (including a former repair technician for DELL) have all been drooling over it.
- Large hard drive, lots of memory
- Fast processor, quiet hard drive
- Cool features, like the touchpad scrollbar, as well as a button that allows you to turn off the touchpad. The blue lights are quite attractive.
- The keyboard has a nice solid feel.

CONS
- Don't let the ALTEC LANSING name fool you - the speakers are nothing to write home about!
- No floppy drive. I hardly use them but I was disappointed not to get one in the box (rather it came with a $50 rebate offer on an external floppy drive.
- Microsoft XP Home - not a great idea if you are using the notebook at the office to administer or connect to network resources like a server. Everytime I connect to a network share, I have to enter a password - there is no option to save the password. Other little things in XP home are really a turn off... but that's a MICROSOFT issue.
- CDR Drive does not include burnproof technology, so close some applications before burning.
- HP has included some proprietory cdr drivers which will create cds that can only be read by other HP drives. This feature is enabled by default, but can easily be disabled. The standard drag and drop XP cdr capabilities work just fine! What was HP thinking?! The first CD i made became a coaster. But as I said, it can easily be disabled - thereafter it works fine!

Overall, especially given the price, I would recommend this laptop highly.

I have done alot of looking online and for the price you cannot beat this! This would cost you [$$]+ on a difrent system.I have had it for a week and have used it mostly as my main pc and gaming platform the games I play our power hungry flight simms Falcon 4.0, Flanker 2.5, etc... as you can see these games requir alot of power mem=512DDR, a AGP 32DDR (AGPX4 means you can upgrade latter) witch alot of other laptops dont give you that option even the DDR ram can be upgraded to 1gigDDR![.]
So if you dont want to spen [$$]then this is a name brand computer for you[.]
I now use this notbook as my main pc so you know it is powerful!

This computer is nicely loaded except for one thing: the graphics. This system comes with a "Radeon" based chipset which is very out of date. HP is in the process of updating their laptop lines, and on all the older HP models like this you are stuck with the ATI MOBILITY RADEON chipset.

Oddly for much less money you can buy their newer Pavilion xt125 which has the ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500C which (according to ATI) is 2.5x faster than the MOBILITY RADEON. It also has faster, cooler DDRAM (though only offered at 256M, you can upgrade to 512M and still spend less) and a 1.6GHz P4 class mobile Celeron which runs cooler and uses less power than a 1.4GHz Athlon and pretty much equals is on the benchmarks.

Frankly I think the HP Pavilion xt125 is the best deal going right now on Amazon. I'm sure HP will be correcting this soon by rolling out new version of their other machines with updated grapic chipsets, but in the meantime I suggest you go for the better machine at the cheaper price.

There are better notebooks, but for the money and coming from a major manufacturer it can't be beat. I wanted a notebook for business and not gaming. I wish however they would not pre-install all the apps. If I want Quicken or Word Perfect on my notebook, I will install them from the CD's.

In addition to numerous other problems that this laptop has had over the past year, its power supply just EXPLODED.

So not only does this laptop have shoddy hardware, it's a fire hazard.

As a member of the armed forces I'm set to leave home for an extended period of time and I couldn't imagine leaving my beloved desktop behind. As a member of the armed forces I also couldn't imagine being able to aford an acceptable replacement that I could take with me. I shopped around for over a week and the HP ZE4145 was the best value I could find anywhere. It was the combination of price and features of the ZE4145 that convinced me that it would be worth buying a laptop. I ordered it while away on training and it was recived by my wife who is a computer novice. She managed to get it registered and running DVDs on our home TV via the s-video tv-out port. She even set it up for easy one-touch operation.

For me it will be a great source of entertainment while spending countless days away from home. I have accumulated a nice collection of DVDs in a short time,I already have several computer games to play, and a collection of hundreds of MP3s. All of which the ZE4145 can handle with ease. The LAN port allows me to network with my shipmates who also have notebooks. The 40gig HD give me pleanty of room to streach. The 15" screen is the envy of many other notebook owners onboard. The video card can be set to use up to 64MB of RAM and with 512MB you can manage to lose it.

I haven't had a single problem yet. I love my new notebook.

I purchased my notebook computer in November of 2001. At the same time I purchased HP's [$$$] 'Support Pack' which extends the warranty to 3 years and guarantees a 3 day turn around time. Fed Ex picks it up and brings it back and HP picks up the shipping. I wasted my money
I have owned my computer for 12 months and it hasn't worked properly for 8 months. The battery will not fully charge. Sometimes it will charge to only 3%, sometimes to 70%. But it will not fully charge no matter how long you try to charge it.
I have performed numerous system calibrations and BIOS upgrades and I have sent it in for repair 3 times...This time they replaced the motherboard. The problem isn't fixed.
My computer still doesn't work...
Save yourself a huge headache. Buy a computer that works...

I purchased this laptop several years ago, and for the most part have been pleased. I have had one recurring problem, relating to the battery & power supply.

After about 6 months, I started having power problems. The battery was no longer charging. It was not a problem with the battery, but rather the power cord. I had several cords fail over the next year and a half. Eventually the interior piece the cord plugs into snapped off of the computer and I had to have it soddered back in. The fix lasted about a year, and again this month I am having power problems.

The design of the cord and where it connects to the computer do not seem to be ideal for people who constantly move the laptop around. If one were to leave it plugged in on a desk most of the time, this might not be an issue.

Repairs haven't been very costly, but it is a nuisance.

I have had my computer for about 3 years and I have never had a problem. It has never been in for a single repair. It has been used frequently by my two teenagers. Maybe I was just lucky?! The battery did go out about 1 year into its life, but no biggie.