Review: HP DV5Z Laptop

largecanadian · #1 (**permalink**) 07-18-2008, 10:56 PM

I ordered HP's DV5Z after looking at Dell Vostro 1400's and 1500's due to the fact that you could get a dedicated 8400M GS in them for a reasonable price. From what I could find online, it would run CSS, TF2, HL2, and maybe even a little CoD4. But that was before I had the money. Then Dell was stupid and dropped the 1400 line and you couldn't even get a 8400M GS in the 1500 anymore.
(As a side note, the processor i was looking at was only a the T5270 @ 1.4Ghz so even this QL-60 is a lil faster)

So with the thought of a very budget gaming laptop I bought the HP DV5Z with the newest PUMA AMD platform, and the HD3200 IGP, which, from what I heard, could beat/tie the 8400M GS in most graphics benchmarks/tests.

My loadout:
Vista Home Premium 64-bit
AMD Athlon X2 QL-60 @ 1.9Ghz
15.4" Screen @ 1280x800
2GB of DDR2 800
B/G Wireless
160GB HDD
8x DVD burner
6 Cell battery
Radeon HD3200
Total- $635.99
Tests:

First I ran the 3Dmark Test suite.

3Dmark01-8333
3Dmark03-3090
3Dmark05-2451
Re-ran 05 @ 1280x800-2177

Ran PCmark

PCmark05-3428

Onto the Counter Strike Source Stress Test

Stress Test-55fps avg (see attached picture for CSS settings)

Ran a loop of 3Dmark05 to kill battery as fast as possible

75% brightness, balanced vista power profile-1:10

Pros:

HD3200
4 USB ports
E-Sata/ USB combo port
HP Remote that hides in expresscard slot
HDMI out
HP's dock port
2 headphone ports
Glowing HP logo
Sexy looks

Cons:

Fingerprint magnet !!
Glossy/Mirror touch pad
Med-low battery life
Only 4 in 1 card reader
Tiny right shift

Fish111 · #2 (**permalink**) 07-18-2008, 10:59 PM

For $635 gg

Nice review

Teck · #3 (**permalink**) 07-18-2008, 11:39 PM

Its nice to see a really well prepared Hewlett-Packard laptop review...

I'm curious how you like the quick play? You should be able to watch movies, listen to music, and view pictures with out booting windows and often with out turning on the hard drive and other unneeded devices... Battery life in quick play is often much longer than the battery life in windows...

I have a few suggestions for you (coming from a hardcore hp laptop/printer fanboy of over 12 years):

I recommend getting the extended warranty package for your laptop before the standard 1 year warranty is up... You will be using it for gaming, probably a couple of hours a night... Over time that places a good deal of stress on the laptop... If you ever do have to send it back to hp the normal repair turn around is 3 days...
For the finger prints, if you use the small cloth the laptop comes with you will be able to clean any glossy areas of the laptop... If anything my DV6040 helps be be more aware of how clean & oil free my hands are...
To extend the battery life, you can disable windows services / unneeded programs, you can also adjust the screen brightness, etc... One often overlooked trick is to upgrade to the latest BIOS from HP... Often after they are shipped new BIOS updates are released that fix many small issues which often leads to better battery life... With my DV6040, when i first got it i would get ~80-90 minutes of battery life with the 6 cell when doing some basic web surfing... I updated the BIOS some time later and it added ~15 minutes to that... It may not sound like much but it sure is nice...

No-Fear · #4 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 12:08 AM

excellent review ! !

Craig · #5 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 12:23 AM

great review Glen.

bacon_x · #6 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 12:33 AM

awesome review glenn

largecanadian · #7 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 12:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Teck

I'm curious how you like the quick play? You should be able to watch movies, listen to music, and view pictures with out booting windows and often with out turning on the hard drive and other unneeded devices... Battery life in quick play is often much longer than the battery life in windows...

I wasn't sure what you meant at first, because quickplay looked like another media center to me, then trying to boot into quickplay just booted vista and then quickplay over top....thought something was wrong till i googled and found this....

Quote:

As of 2008, QuickPlay versions 3.0 and newer included in notebooks shipping with Windows Vista, do not provide users with instant access to the software, as the "Direct" function no longer exists due to unresolved compatibilty issues. Users must first boot into Windows and access their user accounts before the software can run. It is currently unknown if or when HP plans to release newer versions of Quickplay, with a direct boot function.

from wiki....

Teck · #8 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 02:08 AM

That sucks... It sounds like a Windows Vista issue.. hmm

I wonder if i were to upgrade to vista if i would have that issue then...

MajorMalfunction · #9 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 02:57 AM

Nice review!

A note on battery life. In addition to what Teck said, you can look into Notebook Hardware Control. It's a free program that gives you easy access to power saving features and gives you more options than the regular Vista power management. Gives temp readings too, which is a nice bonus.

CoffeeShark · #10 (**permalink**) 07-19-2008, 09:23 AM

that sucks about quickplay.

I know Asus has their 'quickplay' OS on some of their systems, so you can surf the web and play music/video without booting to windows.