In another of my IT duties over the Christmas holidays, I helped my brother-in-law set up the new HP Pavilion dt6000z notebook that he had purchased for his wife. Although the main use for this system is to run CAD software, he picked the Pavilion line which was on special at Circuit City before Christmas.
Key Features:
- Intel Core 2 Duo (T5200) processor, 1.6GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 2 cores
- 1 GB DDR DRAM
- 15.4" WXGA wide screen display (1280 x 800)
- 120GB 5400 rpm SATA disk drive
- Windows XP Home Media Center Edition, with upgrade to Windows Vista Home when available.
- HP LightScribe DVD 8x Dual Layer DVD+R/RW writer
- 1.3MP web camera
- Remote control for DVD playback, fits into the ExpressCard slot for storage
- Touch sensitive media control keys
- The Intel Core 2 Duo processor which 2 cores was very responsive. I had no trouble running a antivirus scan and DVD playback software at the same time.
- The 15.4" wide screen display is bright and great for viewing movies.
- The HP QuickPlay software launches the DVD player without running Windows for those times when you just want to watch a movie without any other apps.
Minuses:
- Does not include system restore disks. Included software to make your own system restore DVD's took over an hour to make.
- Does not include Microsoft Office (only the trial version)
- Includes lots of trial software and offers for subscriptions. Removing all of this unwanted software took several hours and freed several gigabytes of disk space.
- HP configures the disk drive into a C: and D: partitions. The D: partition (11GB) contains restore versions of system drivers. I'd rather this was included as a DVD and free up the 11GB.
