HP Pavilion ze4430: Mobile computing for the masses.
Written: Dec 01 '03
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Pros: Price, AMD processor, wireless adapter, an excellent touchpad.
Cons: Battery power while using the wireless isn't great.
The Bottom Line: I give it 4.5 stars. That's the bottom line.
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| rice75's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Pavilion Ze4430us PC Notebook |
The HP Pavilion ze4430 is a laptop that doesn’t know what it wants to be. On one hand, it is not powerful enough to be a desktop replacement, but on the other hand, it is not slim and light enough to be great for travel. While its self-image may be a mess, it is by no means a bad laptop. Quite the opposite, it knows its capabilities and performs them dutifully.
The HP Pavilion ze4430 is a good machine. I bought this laptop with the intention to augment my desktop, not replace it. My desktop is my main PC, but it resides in the basement and I wanted a way to do mundane tasks (email, web surf, write reviews) without having to go all the way down to the basement. So I figured that with its built in 54g wireless network adapter I could use it anywhere I wanted. And that’s exactly what it’s been used for. I am able to leave it on the table in the living room (out of the reach of my nine-month explorer) and we no longer have to go downstairs every time we need to use the computer. Now it’s there, at arms length.
As far as the guts go, it’s powered by an AMD Athlon XP-M 2400+ processor (I am an AMD guy, afterall!), 512 MB of PC2100 RAM (don’t know what PC2100 means? Check this out). It has a built in video card that shares memory. The hard drive is 40 GB, plenty of space. It also has 2 PCMCIA slots, a built-in modem, a firewire port, two USB (ver. 1.1) ports, ethernet port and an 54g wireless LAN adapter, S-video out connector, DVD/CD-RW (DVD 8x, CD-RW 24x8x8) and all the other basic features. The processor keeps the HP Pavilion ze4430 chugging along just fine. I have played a few 3D intensive games here and the laptop isn’t strong enough to make this a primary gaming machine. On the other hand, it did just fine with other, less graphic-intensive games. Surfing the internet sails smoothly with the wireless 54g LAN and my Netgear wireless router. I also do a fair amount of office apps (word processing, email) and it handles those without a problem.
Screen quality should be a major factor when you make your laptop purchase decision. Since the screen is an LCD active matrix and not a CRT, the pixel size is fixed, which in turns fixes the overall screen resolution. The screen is a 15" XGA-TFT, with a resolution of 1024x768, driven by an ATI Mobility Radeon IGP 320M (64 MB, shared). Colors aren’t popping off the screen but they are vivid enough to deliver a quality picture. Graphic intensive applications give the laptop a little trouble but the image is still good in other applications. Multimedia isn’t always the most important aspect of a laptop but they are getting more important. The HP Pavilion ze4430 doesn’t necessarily skimp in this department. DVD playback is superb. Sound from the Altec Lansing speakers is pretty good but sounds a little tinny at times.
One of my favorite parts of the laptop is the mouse touchpad. In addition to the requisite touch pad area and the two buttons there is an area of the touchpad that acts as the scroll wheel on a regular mouse. I find this feature almost indispensible but I’ve only seen it on HP/Compaq laptops. The mousepad is a Synaptics touchpad and it is highly configurable. It is sensitive but not excessively so. There is a little button to turn the touchpad off when you are doing a lot of typing. The touchpad is perfect. It’s one of the reasons I chose the HP Pavilion ze4430 over a Dell laptop. The keyboard is relatively quiet and responsive. The quick keys are handy, as well.
The software package isn’t the greatest. It comes pre-loaded with Windows XP Home Edition, Norton Antivirus, Corel Productivity Pack (WordPerfect 10, Quattro Pro 10), Quicken Money Manager and other basic programs such as DVD playback and a host of internet apps. While Microsoft Office is the defacto standard, I don’t mind using WordPerfect and its counterparts. I haven’t given Quicken a try yet, but I am looking forward to giving it a go. The included software could be better but I guess it’s adequate.
Built in wireless is such a wonderful thing. Configured with my Netgear Wireless router, I can go anywhere in the house with the laptop which, is a great thing. Setting up the wireless receiver was quite simple, it’s pretty easy to get configured and up and running. I am using the 802.11g setting (up to 54 Mbps) but I am bottlenecked by my cable modem connection so I haven’t opened up the pipe too much but it works perfectly, regardless.
Battery is not the greatest asset for the HP Pavilion ze4430. A full charge can last up to three hours but that is without using the wireless receiver. Using it cuts the operating time to about two hours. That’s not too much of a problem but it is a bit of a drag if you plan on doing a lot of traveling. The battery does charge quickly but I keep my laptop plugged in for most of the time anyway, so battery power isn’t entirely important to me.
The size of the laptop is 13" x 10.75" x 1.62", making it little more than an inch and a half thick. It weighs in at about 7.25 pounds, so it’s not super heavy put it still doesn’t put it in the lightweight category.
Overall, I would recommend the HP Pavilion ze4430 for anyone looking for a reasonably powerful laptop. It doesn’t have the computing power to replace your desktop and it isn’t light enough to be a road warrior but it is an excellent computer to do everything we normally do with a PC: email, surf the web and play Spider Solitaire. I give it a strong 4.5 stars.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1099.00
Operating System: Windows
Processor: AMD Athlon (K7)
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: More than 256
Internal Storage: CD-RW and DVD
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40
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Epinions.com ID:
rice75
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Member: Tony Rice
Location: Columbus, OH
Reviews written: 73
Trusted by: 66 members
About Me:
Resident Evil 4 will own your soul. Do not resist.
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