Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion ze5170 Laptop (2.0 GHz Pentium 4, 512MB RAM, 40GB hard drive)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

After considerable research, I bought the ze5170 as a desktop replacement. I like HP engineering, and this machine has only reinforced that sentiment. There is only one flaw and that is the not-so-DVD-friendly Mobility graphics card. It stutters at some chapter changes and with certain kinds of subtitles. Reducing resolution to the minimum tends to fix this, but then the picture isn't quite as sharp as it might be. Still, DVDs are very watchable, especially for the occasional viewer. The two fans can get a little noisey, but they also serve as a reminder of HP's persnickediness about tolerances - most other manufacturers just let your legs or (worse) the electronics bake. Keep this one in mind.

If you go on HPs forums, you'll see quite a few major problems with this laptop.

1. DC jack comes loose or breaks off board, laptop becomes unuseable

2. Backlight flickers, then goes off, inverter fried

3. Hard drive may suddenly stop responding

4. Touch pad is sticky or non responsive or just plain broken

5. Upgrading bios may turn the laptop into a brick even if you do it exactly right and pick the right one.

6. Battery stops working unexpectedly

7. Buying it from a computer store, you may be missing parts like th AC adapter or the recovery disks. HP will charge you $100 for the disks even though the windows license is right on the computer. Don't ever buy a computer from an electronics store. Never.

If you have enough to get a decent computer, buy a Dell. If you are strapped for cash, buy a Gateway. If you have plenty of cash, buy a Thinkpad...they are the best laptops in the market. I am not writing this as a rabid "fanboy", but as a person who owns the paperweight, I mean the HP ze5170 right now and who has experienced every one of these issues. I have also owned several Thinkpads and Gateways. Oh, I miss my 333mhz Thinkpad...isn't that terrible?

Nothing but trouble. It never worked from the day I got it. Had it repaired, 6 months later hard drive is clicking and fans not working. Lost hard drive. HP says ship it back. I said - it's under warranty right, you fixed it 6 months ago. She says no it is not under warranty. Repair is warrantied for 90 days. "90 days???" I said. "Well, there is obviously a REASON" you won't warranty your products or repair for more than 90 days.

Isn't there?

I purchased the ze5170, because the price was lower than other competing brands for its spec. Usually Sony or Dell would be much more expensive for the same spec. The problem I found with this computer is that, it is a heavy notebook (not recommended for mobile users) Also screen is actually smaller than listed 15.1" (i don't know why...) Other laptops have fans in the BACK, not on the side. This makes the computer very noisy, since it's coming out right next your hands. The inputs in the back are not sufficiently done, as it's just displayed in the back without a cover (if users don't use ports as much, it will have dust on it. And if you care about the design, it is horrible because, it has bright yellow, blue, pink colors.)
One interesting thing I found out about laptops is that, HP's 2.0 GHz, 40GB, 516 RAM is actually WORSE than Sony's or Dell's 1.6 GHz, 30GB, 258 RAM.

There is a reason why Dell is toping the charts in laptop categories. I don't remember the model names but 4150, 8200, i think? buy those. I have a roommate who got that, and i love it more than mine.

We bought this PC for my father-inlaw. He does not want to be a PC expert. He wants to send email, surf the web, buy things from Amazon, watch some DVDs and listen to music. This PC has been nothing but trouble. DVDs did not play at all. After checking out the HP user forums, a full reinstall was the answer. Merry Christmas, Dad! Failed startups are common, reboots if you plug/unplug power during startup, screen flicker, and rotten online support have made this a really poor experience. I encourage you to go to the HP user forums and see the problems that people are having with this unit. It does not seem like I got the one bad apple. Good luck.

A nice machine with a large, very clear screen. Huge hard drive and fast. Nice design.

A bit heavy for carrying around. The fans are still a bit noisy but an improvement over earlier laptops by HP. Keyboard operates smoothly and has the internet feature buttons for quick access to the net. Modem connects and operates faster than previous products as well. Touchpad buttons are sluggish in responding but pad itself works well.

All considered I am very happy with this machine.

This is the best computer I had so far. very reliable, 40GB is a lot. Screen is very bright and the design, I have to admit, the best HP has ever made. The touch pad is one of its biggest advantage. Not so many manufactures have this scroll area on the touch pad, which lets scroll up and down very easily and fast without the need to keep pressing the page-up or page-down, it is much faste. The feel of the kkeyboard is very nice and soft. Battery life is reasonable, around 2.5 hrs, depends on how you use the unit. I highly recommend it.

I bought this laptop in Sept of 2002. It worked great for the first six months - then the problems started. First, the screen flicker (which is resolved by pushing on the cord that connects the screen to the unit, but it's a stopgap measure that only works for 1-2 days before you have to do it again). In late January, the laptop powered settings virtually destroyed the system - HP tech support's only resolution was to do a system restore. Because the disks are ONLY system restore, and not an actual copy of XP, I couldn't reinstall (which would've solved the problem). I lost everything since my previous backup - 3 weeks of e-mail and documents.

Lately, the fan has started to become noisy and the DVD drive spins when a disk is in, regardless of whether or not I'm accessing the drive. No disk, no spin, but if a disk is in, it'll spin for no reason.

HP's solution is for me to pack it up and ship it to them, leaving me without my laptop for 6 weeks.

As I sit here typing on my ZE5170, which is powered by the Windows 7 Beta by the way, I have to smile at those really bad reviews for this laptop. This thing has been through hell these past 7 years with me and a friend's family. Yeah, the original hard drive crashed but the replacement is twice as big and almost twice as fast. And the cooling fan was replaced in 2005. But this thing makes a great 2nd computer for the kitchen or bedroom, or to loan out to friends in need of help.
This thing has outlasted several of my cars, my wife and all sorts of other tech goodies.
Just had to chime in! :-)
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Yep. It's still up and running. Except now it has Windows 7 installed. I stuck a flash drive with an 8GB card in a USB slot and the readyboost speed up makes the rig actually relatively fast and amazingly stable.
Nice to have the back up laptop still.

This laptop worked fine for me for the first year and a half. I could write my papers. I could write programs. Movies played great. For that period of time it was a GREAT laptop. All was right with the world. Then one day, inexplicably, my CD-RW stops working. I mean it couldn't read anything from a burned data CD to a DVD. It was never dropped, hit, or otherwise attacked. It sat on a table by itself at all times. I took it to the local PC doctors and after some diagnostics it was determined that the CD-RW was bad. Then, about a year or so later my hard drive decided it was tired of working. One day I got the blue screen and it was all she wrote. It wouldn't even start Windows XP. I took it back to the PC doctor, they ran some diagnostics, and told me the hard drive was jacked up. Getting a replacement from HP wasn't an option as they charge twice as much and more for one than other retailers. I'm looking for an affordable one online and I'm just going to replace it myself. Before this I was using a Sony VAIO desktop. I will admit that those things are a little pricier than a lot of PCs but I can honestly say that I NEVER had a hardware issue with it. It might be time for me to save up some paychecks and go back to what worked and leave this HP mess alone.