Hewlett Packard Pavilion DV9000Z 17" Screen Laptop Review

With its impressive feature set, gorgeous screen, and generous assemblage of high-end components, the HP Pavilion DV9000z packs plenty of punch for mainstream tasks and multimedia chores (including high-definition movie watching), but its 3D performance pales next to the pricier, Core 2 Duo-based competition.

Clad in a high-gloss black finish (with a subtle wave motif), the eye-catching Pavilion DV9000z would fit in just as well in a home theater as it would in a home office. Despite its desktop-hogging footprint, the 8.4-pound notebook features a surprisingly thin case for a desktop replacement. Its spacious, full-size keyboard makes typing a breeze, and we like that HP included a dedicated number pad. The notebook's extra-wide touch pad features comfortable actuation buttons, a scroll zone, and a touch-pad on/off key. Above the keyboard are a set of blue-backlit media keys, including a nifty, touch-sensitive volume control.

Perhaps the DV9000z's most impressive attribute is its 17-inch wide-screen LCD. The panel on our review unit featured a crisp 1,440x900 native resolution and HP's dual-lamp Ultra BrightView technology (a $125 add-on), which resulted in one of the brightest, clearest pictures we've seen to date. Thanks to the system's built-in HD DVD drive, the screen can display high-definition movies in all their rich detail. You'll also find a 1.3-megapixel camera built into the display bezel. Altec Lansing speakers, tucked beneath a silver grille below the screen, provide excellent sound to complete the multimedia experience.

The DV9000z comes with Microsoft's Windows Vista OS-our unit came with the Ultimate build-plus HP's proprietary QuickPlay software, which uses Vista's HotStart feature to allow users to watch DVDs, play audio CDs, and browse photos without fully booting the OS. You can control QuickPlay from a distance using a bundled, wafer-thin remote that slips into the notebook's ExpressCard slot when not in use.

Connectivity-wise, the DV9000z comes well-equipped with four USB ports, a FireWire jack, VGA and S-Video outs, a five-format flash-memory-card reader, and an ExpressCard slot, as well as headphone, mic, and S/PDIF digital-audio jacks. You also get a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port onboard, which lets you connect the notebook to a compatible television for use as an HD DVD player. For networking, our review unit came with modem and Ethernet jacks, built-in Bluetooth, and 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. (Draft N wireless is also an available configuration option).

While our $2,606 review unit packed a bevy of high-end components, it still costs less than many high-end desktop-replacement notebooks, thanks mainly to its cheaper AMD processor. In fact, the model we evaluated, which included AMD's dual-core 2.2GHz Turion X2 TL-64, cost over $1,000 less than the similarly configured Dell XPS M1710 based on Intel's top-end 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor. In addition, our Pavilion featured 2GB of DDR2 RAM, twin 160GB hard drives, and the aforementioned HD DVD drive, which also functions as a multiformat DVD burner. HP skimped a bit on graphics power, however, outfitting the DV9000z with a discrete nVidia GeForce Go 7600 card with 256MB of DDR3 memory. We would like to see a 512MB card as an option, like with competing machines such as Dell's XPS M1710 and HP's own Core 2 Duo-based Pavilion DV9000t.

The DV9000z tore through productivity and multimedia chores with ease, but its budget-friendly processor-and-graphics combination took a toll on gaming performance. In testing, the DV9000z scored a below-average 2,411 on our Futuremark 3DMark 06 test at standard 1,024x768 resolution. It scored even lower at higher resolutions, which means the latest 3D games won't do well here. As for battery life, the laptop's high-capacity, eight-cell battery lasted 2 hours and 4 minutes in our DVD drain test, an average length for a desktop replacement but still less time than several Core 2 Duo-based desktop replacements we've tested.

HP backs the Pavilion DV9000z with a standard one-year warranty, which comes with 24/7 tech support via e-mail, chat, and phone.