- Multimedia Functionality
- Large Capacity Hard Drive
- Good Software Bundle
- Multimedia Requires External Box
- Slow Speed DDR2 Memory
- Intel Pentium 4 540 (3.2GHz, 1MB Cache) Processor
- 512MB PC2-3200 DDR2 Memory (2GB Maximum)
- 100GB 4,200rpm Hard Drive
- DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
- 17" WXGA+ (1440x900) LCD and ATI Mobility Radeon X600 with 128MB Memory
- AC'97 Audio
- v.92 56Kbps Modem, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11b/g Wireless
- Four USB2, Two FireWire, One Type II PC Card Slot, 6-in-1 Media Reader
- 15.7" x 11.5" x 2" @ 9.4 lbs.
- Windows XP Media Center, MS Works, MS Money, Norton Anti-Virus, WinDVD, RecordNow, Muvee, Itunes
1/19/05 - Media center PCs are a fairly new development in the PC market, but they have come a long way in just a couple of year. Mobile computers are now starting to come packaged with these multimedia capabilities including the HP Pavilion zd8060us.
Powering the Pavilion zd8060us is the Pentium 4 540 (3.2GHz) desktop processor. This should provide more than enough power for the multimedia applications. Matched up to this is 512MB of PC2-3200 DDR memory. While this is the latest memory technology, it doesn't provide any performance gains over the traditional DDR.
Storage for the zd8060us is quite good. The system comes with a very large 100GB hard drive but sacrifices rotational speed for the large capacity. The system can also burn DVDs which is an important feature for those using it as a media center. It also comes with a 6-in-1 media card reader.
Of course where would a multimedia PC be without graphics. The zd8060us is powered by the new ATI Mobility X600 graphics processor and a 17" wide screen display. This makes viewing DVDs and television very easy. The problem is that many of the multimedia functions require an external box be plugged into the computer, reducing some of its portability.
Overall, the Pavilion zd8060us is a very nice entry for a multimedia center notebook computer. There is room for improvement, especially if HP can integrate some of the capture functions into the unit instead of having to use the external box.
