New Compaq V2000 and HP DV1000 series watch

[EvanAdams]

I just got back from the optomitrist. My perscription changed dramaticly. Major change. Most of it is from Law School but she did say glare is bout the worst thing you can do. I am unhappy with the brite view but love the dv

 

[larving]

Originally posted by: Go2theRock

Originally posted by: larving
...So my question is does anyone have a dv1000/v2000 WITHOUT the BriteView screen, and, if so, do you like it? Is the tradeoff on contrast for readability ok?

thanks

I got the regular screen...after seeing the glare of the briteview it didn't seem likely to work well for all three kids watching movies in the back of the Tahoe. I tried looking at both side-by-side, but the BB guy was clueless...so I gambled. I like this one fine, though be sure to set the display options for LCD vs. normal (WinDVD and/or WMP) that made a big difference in color.

Go2theRock

Most movies will still be letterboxed slightly. Widescreen films usually come in at 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, whereas your laptop screen does 1.6:1, so none will be perfect. BUT, you're seeing a much better rendition than if you had a standard 1.33:1 screen ratio.

 

[stingygrrl]

has anyone put foam tape or anything like that under the keyboard? is it easy to remove it?

 

[Go2theRock]

Most movies will still be letterboxed slightly. Widescreen films usually come in at 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, whereas your laptop screen does 1.6:1, so none will be perfect. BUT, you're seeing a much better rendition than if you had a standard 1.33:1 screen ratio.

I suppose, but I don't think that's what I'm seeing. GadgeTT's post on 11/3 implied a correction (Quickplay shows major boxing), but didn't outline the steps. Seems like Quickplay would use the settings stored for one of the Windows players, but which one?

Thanks,
Go2theRock

 

[larving]

Originally posted by: Go2theRock

Most movies will still be letterboxed slightly. Widescreen films usually come in at 1.85:1 or 2.35:1, whereas your laptop screen does 1.6:1, so none will be perfect. BUT, you're seeing a much better rendition than if you had a standard 1.33:1 screen ratio.

I suppose, but I don't think that's what I'm seeing. GadgeTT's post on 11/3 implied a correction (Quickplay shows major boxing), but didn't outline the steps. Seems like Quickplay would use the settings stored for one of the Windows players, but which one?

Thanks,
Go2theRock

Well, first off, what format is/are the DVD(s) you're trying to play? Some have a fixed letterbox format (which sucks), others are anamorphic (best), and what you see on the screen will depend on the encoding. Try several different formats and see what happens.

 

[Go2theRock]

Well, I tried several more...Finding Nemo looks pretty decent with narrow borders, but LOTR & Star Wars are very letterboxed...bummer.

 

[Go2theRock]

So what's with TV Out on the DV1000? The documentation says that it's only enabled if it was purchased with the expansion base or all-in-one media cable?!

I've tried various things, but nothing on the Svideo port apparently since I didn't order w/either of those options...would have, but didn't figure I needed another cable.

Go2theRock

 

[RaNDoMMAI]

did anyone config the dv1000 with the 1.4dothan? is that to slow, i mean this isnt a gamer lappy, so 1.4ghz should be fine right?

also, on notebookreview.com
in the side by side compare with the v2000 and the dv1000, the guy returned his dv1000 because the viewing angles of the dv1000 were really bad, gave him the inverse color thing. Does anyone else have this problem? Has the CMOS clock thing been fixed?

TIa
~RaNDoM

 

[gupit]

Has anyone tried running vmware and/or premiere pro 1.5 on these machines.
I would like to run Linux on vmare on this machine to do some development work. And I would like to use Premiere pro to do some video editing on it as well.
I am thinking of ordering a V2000, 1.8GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB 5400 RPM (which I may have to replace with a 7200 rpm for the video editing stuff) etc.
Thx for all the information on this thread!

 

[gbrux]

I ordered a DV1000 at hpshopping.com last Tuesday, 12/14, as a Christmas gift for my dear old mom. The CSR at HPShopping said that he was sure that it would arrive in time for Christmas based on their recent delivery performance on holiday orders.

In tracking the order via FedEx, I was surprised that the thing was coming from Shanghai, China, although I shouldn't have been surprised because all notebooks are made in Southeast Asia, Japan, and China.

Doubly unfortunate for me and my mom, it won't arrive on time because it didn't leave Shanghai until December 22 and apparently because of the snow storm in the Midwest USA.

Here's the transit info from FedEX tracking:

Left HP origin Shanghai 12/20 12:44 pm

Left FedEX Sort Shanghai 12/22 10:02 pm

Arrive FedEX Sort Anchorage 12/22 1:44 pm

Left FedEx Anchorage 12/22 4:02 pm

Arrive FedEX Indianapolis 12/23 4:03 am

The last status notation was that "Delay beyond our control" at 5:00 am, 12/23, in Indianapolis, which I suspect means snowed in at the airport. Dang.

 

[fbrdphreak]

So what's the official word on 12-cell batt life? I know I saw the one guy's pic with 8 hours, but that was probly with the CPU idling and who knows what else. How about average usage with low brightness & wifi? Internet, e-mail, maybe watching a video clip or something. Thanks!

 

[RaNDoMMAI]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
So what's the official word on 12-cell batt life? I know I saw the one guy's pic with 8 hours, but that was probly with the CPU idling and who knows what else. How about average usage with low brightness & wifi? Internet, e-mail, maybe watching a video clip or something. Thanks!

should be good, i would say still 5 hours plus.

on other news, i went to BB and CC yesterday and i brought along the movie fight club to try on on both the dv1000. i gotta say that the screen was really bad. the movie had a fuzzy look to it and when i was looking for any angle that was not right in front i get that inverse color thing the reviewer at notebookreview talked abut.

i also have to say that compared to the dell 700m, toshiba quismio, and even the gateway machine. this screen is nothing really special. when i was messing with wallpapers and just normal stuff like web and word. it always looked dimmed. i did mes with brightness and contrast and could never get it right. Even the people shopping for last minute gifts who was interested in what i was doing said that other lappy's had better screen.

i dont understand why this lappy has such good reviews on display, i totally agree with the notebookreviewer guy and not get this lappy because of the inverse color thing it has so bad and becasue it just doesnt look that good. other lappy does not have this problem as bad as this lappy.

~RaNDoM

 

[gbrux]

Originally posted by: gbrux
I ordered a DV1000 at hpshopping.com last Tuesday, 12/14, as a Christmas gift for my dear old mom. The CSR at HPShopping said that he was sure that it would arrive in time for Christmas based on their recent delivery performance on holiday orders.

In tracking the order via FedEx, I was surprised that the thing was coming from Shanghai, China, although I shouldn't have been surprised because all notebooks are made in Southeast Asia, Japan, and China.

Doubly unfortunate for me and my mom, it won't arrive on time because it didn't leave Shanghai until December 22 and apparently because of the snow storm in the Midwest USA.

Here's the transit info from FedEX tracking:

Left HP origin Shanghai 12/20 12:44 pm

Left FedEX Sort Shanghai 12/22 10:02 pm

Arrive FedEX Sort Anchorage 12/22 1:44 pm

Left FedEx Anchorage 12/22 4:02 pm

Arrive FedEX Indianapolis 12/23 4:03 am

The last status notation was that "Delay beyond our control" at 5:00 am, 12/23, in Indianapolis, which I suspect means snowed in at the airport. Dang.

Just a followup on this delivery.

Today's tracking entries

Left Indianapolis 12/24 6:29 am

Arrive Dulles Internl. 12/24 7:58 am

Arrive HerndonFedEx 12/24 8:22 am

On FedEx Vehicle for Del. 12/24 9:42 am

Delivered 12/24 12:26 pm


Thank you HP and FedEx. You guys must really have humped on this. I never though I'd see this thing until next week considering that it started out from Shanghai, China, only on Tuesday and was stuck in the deep snow in Indianapolis yesterday.

I'm reminded of the movie "Cast Away" with Tom Hanks. When he finally got back home, that FedEx guy went the whole nine yards to make the delivery of the only package he had left.

Outstanding job. The dv1000 is wrapped, and I know my mom will be surprised and pleased tomorrow.

Merry Christmas.

 

[gbrux]

One consideration when buying this notebook or any other consumer product: return policy.

HP has a 30-day return for full refund if you buy from HPshopping.com. You must get a RMA number before the return.

Other stores aren't so liberal. For instance, Best Buy has a 14-day return on notebooks and a 15% restocking fee will apply if returned not in "like new condition", the original packaging and manuals, except where the notebook is defective.

With respect to the Notebookreview review of the DV1000, I thought that that guy was so dishonest that I paid no attention to his recommendations. He decided not to allow HP to send him another unit with a working CMOS clock because "I was afraid I would probably get another with the same lcd issues." How does he know that all DV1000s have this issue? In addition, he said in his review that "the lcd suffers from the dreaded "inverse color" effect in dark areas at VERY narrow angles." So, why would anyone want to view the screen at "Very narrow angles"? What a totally phony excuse.

 

[larving]

Originally posted by: RaNDoMMAI

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
So what's the official word on 12-cell batt life? I know I saw the one guy's pic with 8 hours, but that was probly with the CPU idling and who knows what else. How about average usage with low brightness & wifi? Internet, e-mail, maybe watching a video clip or something. Thanks!

should be good, i would say still 5 hours plus.

on other news, i went to BB and CC yesterday and i brought along the movie fight club to try on on both the dv1000. i gotta say that the screen was really bad. the movie had a fuzzy look to it and when i was looking for any angle that was not right in front i get that inverse color thing the reviewer at notebookreview talked abut.

~RaNDoM

Did you try the V2000? Just wondering how it compared with your DVD test.

 

[RaNDoMMAI]

@larving

i did try the V2000, it was the same except i could get more viewing angles out of it. i really dont understand why these two lappys are so hot. i think the screen is really horrible.

i reccommend anyone considering these two lappys to try for themselves a dvd test. every store seems to have some kind of model. staples, OD, compusa.

~RaNDoM

 

[larving]

Well, just bought a v2000 last night. Hope the screen isn't too terrible. $796 shipped with student discount and assorted rebates.

 

[youngn]

Just got my V2000

Here are the specs.
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
- Intel(R) Pentium(R) M Processor 745 (1.8 GHz)
- 14.0" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x768)
- Intel(R) Extreme Graphics with productivity ports
- 256MB DDR SDRAM (1x256MB)
- 80 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
- 8X DVD +/- RW/R & CD-RW Combo
- FREE Upgrade to Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG WLAN!
- Microsoft(R) Works/Money
- 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

1-year HP Accidental Damage Protection with Express Repair Extended Service Plan for HP Pavilion and Presario Notebook PCs

I ordered an extra Gig from crucial. The notebook came with DDR33 pc 2700.

Total $1587 with student discount and the gig of ram from crucial.com.

If any one wants me to do any tests let me know!

 

[spiderhole]

Originally posted by: gbrux
With respect to the Notebookreview review of the DV1000, I thought that that guy was so dishonest that I paid no attention to his recommendations. He decided not to allow HP to send him another unit with a working CMOS clock because "I was afraid I would probably get another with the same lcd issues." How does he know that all DV1000s have this issue? In addition, he said in his review that "the lcd suffers from the dreaded "inverse color" effect in dark areas at VERY narrow angles." So, why would anyone want to view the screen at "Very narrow angles"? What a totally phony excuse.

Let me say a few things in my own defense. I originally purchased both laptops since my wife and I both needed one. The reasons I did not want HP to replace it were numerous. First of all, lots of other people have been complaining about the CMOS clock issue...so the odds of getting another one like that were pretty high.

Also, in regards to the LCD viewing angle issue: what I meant was that you start to get the inverse color effect at angles that are off dead center by VERY NARROW amounts. To explain further, unless you view the screen at almost perfectly centered horizontally and also slightly ABOVE center vertically, you WILL get this inverse color effect. TOTALLY unaccpetable!!! The V2000 exhibits similar behavior but nowhere near as drastic of an angle penalty. A friend of mine has a Sony S260 and you can view the lcd at over 60 degrees from the side before getting any such problem.

On another note, the buzzing noise that many others on forums have been reporting is REAL and ANNOYING. Even if they fixed the clock I had my doubts they would ever be able to track that down.

Lastly, HP was not willing to offer my original 10% disount when I reordered the new unit. This would mean that either I take a $180 penalty for their sending me a defective unit...or send it in for repair and wait who-knows-how-long and pray that the problems get fixed properly. Maybe it's just me, but having to send a brand new machine in for repair just doesn't sit right.

So, please be more considerate before calling someone "Dishonest", especially in a public forum. The main reason I took the time to write up the review was to help poeple who were trying to decide which of those two models to purchase.

-Mitch

 

[gupit]

Gbrux, You shouldn't be so hard on Spiderhole's review. It was fairly objective and it helped me with my purchase. And it shouldn't really matter to HP since both laptops are from HP.
Spiderhole, thanks for your review.

I now have a loaded v2000: 1.8GHz, 1GB ram, 80GB 5400 rpm, Intel productiviy ports, etc etc.
And I am in love with this machine. It is an awesome product! Sleek looks, great screen. On the topic of screen, I hated the BriteView option for the first couple of days. But as I got started to use the laptop more and more, I am liking the depth it provides to the screen and the glare has stopped bothering me as much. Note that I don't plan on watching movies on this much, it is for software development with a lot of typing in emacs.
The narrow viewing angle effect is indeed there, but I can live with it. It is like a built in privacy screen for airplanes 🙂 BTW, you may get around the glare a little bit by playing with the brightness.

I bought this laptop mainly for doing software development and edit some movies on the go. (I am an amateur videographer). I was able to run Windows XP within vmware and it wasn't too bad. Similarly the CPU and the hard drive seem fast enough to do some level of video editing. Obviously rendering takes time (this has nothing to do with the graphics, pure cpu bases), but that is to be expected it being a 1.8GHz machine. Moving to a 7200 RPM drive may help.

I had ordered an extra 12 Cell battery option, but I ended up getting two 12 Cell batteries. These are quite heavy to be honest and dramatically increase the weight of the machine. On the other hand, I love the battery life I am getting out of these. At least 7 hrs with everything going, wireless, windows media player at a high volume, screen brightness 3-4. The laptop is not noisy and the fan does come on occasionaly, but only when placed on lap or pillow. It is not a bother at all.

The wireless chipset is awesome. HP has done an outstanding job in placing the antenna and I get 54Mbps to my Belkin router from everywhere in my house. Even the belkin notebook wireless card is not able to provide such connectivity.

Overall, I am very very happy with my laptop. I have used a couple of Dells, Toshiba, Fujitsu and now this. My last laptop Fujitsu S6010 was a lemon and I had nothing but problems with it. The DC jack component was of medicore quality and I saw the same problem on 3 other Fujitsu laptops. Then the Hard disk died and then the keyboard. Recently something inside conked off so even though I get voltages across the DC Input jack, the laptop stays dead as a doorknob. And don't get me started on the Fujitsu's crappy warranty service. So I decided to invest in v2000 and I am loving it.

BTW, is it possible to load quickplay on this?

Let the love fest continue!!

 

[PreteCloud]

Hey Im New to the Forum and i Just ordered at v2000
Here are the specs

- Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Home Edition with SP2
- Intel(R) Pentium(R) M Processor 725 (1.6 GHz)
- 14.0" WXGA Widescreen (1280x768)
- Intel(R) Extreme Graphics with productivity ports
- 512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256MB)
- 40 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
- FREE Upgrade from DVD to DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive!!
- FREE Upgrade to Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200BG WLAN!
- Microsoft(R) Works/Money
- 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

Im a web designer so i want to kno ifu guys think i would be able to run the Macromedia Suite on it and maybe 3ds Max, and also wat games would u be able to run on with a Intel Extreme Graphics

 

[fbrdphreak]

Does anyone have a model withOUT the Brightview screen? I'm specifically wondering if it has the same issues with DVD playback & inverse color & etc that others have been reporting. Thanks

 

[RaNDoMMAI]

Originally posted by: gupit


Overall, I am very very happy with my laptop. I have used a couple of Dells, Toshiba, Fujitsu and now this. My last laptop Fujitsu S6010 was a lemon and I had nothing but problems with it. The DC jack component was of medicore quality and I saw the same problem on 3 other Fujitsu laptops. Then the Hard disk died and then the keyboard. Recently something inside conked off so even though I get voltages across the DC Input jack, the laptop stays dead as a doorknob. And don't get me started on the Fujitsu's crappy warranty service. So I decided to invest in v2000 and I am loving it.

my friend just got the fujitsu S6231 from reviews on notebookreview and it is by far one of the best lappys i have ever seen. the S6231 sports the dothan cpu and improve heat ventaltion and improve keyboard. so all the "geting hot" problems of the previous S series with banias cpu are gone.

I would say the S6231 build is fantasic and second to only IBM thinkpads. the S6231 is almost all magnesium alloy unlike the plastic i see from the HPdv1000 and V2000.

finally, what IMO makes the Fujitsu S series a winner is the Crystal View. I would say it is as good if not better then toshiba's trubrite on the qosmio.

also on fujitsu harddrives. i just ordered a 40gig one and installed it in my g/f zen shuttle and it is by far the quitest HDD i have ever used. there is no vibiration at all and now the zen is really a silent pc. i have had no problem with it for 2months now.

the only thing stopping me from buying one right now is the price, i need to pay for spring books first and see how much i have left🙁

~RaNDoM

 

[gbrux]

While we're bragging about other models, I'd like to put in a few word about my Acer Travelmate 3201CPi.

For the mobile worker, this notebook can't be beat. At under 5 lbs. and with the ATI moblie Radeon 9700 w/64 MB video ram, it can do it all very well.

I upgraded the memory to the max of 2 GB. I need the extra memory to run Virtural PC under which I run a virtual Windows Server 2003 network and a Novell Suse 9.0 Linux server network. These virtual networks are for demonstation purposes.

The ATI graphics helps quickly draw the screens when you have multiple guest OSes going. This is heavy lifting for any graphics chipset, and puts a strain on builtin graphics like Intel's Extreme.

I don't understand why Acer does not permit vendors to permit purchasers to configure this unit. In other words, whatever configuration that Acer puts out, that's the only configuration you can get. You can't even increase the memory, harddrive, or even upgrade the processor. Far different from HPOnline.com.

In my case, I had to ditch the 512 MB memory that is standard with the 3201CPi to install full banks of 2 GB memory. What a pain.

In my opinion, this is a poor marketing strategy by Acer. Purchasers like me must take into account the cost of upgrading after making the purchase of the standard 3201XCPi at about $1450.

 

[hop12]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Does anyone have a model withOUT the Brightview screen? I'm specifically wondering if it has the same issues with DVD playback & inverse color & etc that others have been reporting. Thanks

I got mine without the Brightview, and I do notice the inverse colors. It doesn't bother me much, though. I have not noticed any issues with the DVD payback.