Is this laptop any good?

Question

if i buy this laptop with these features, what would i get most out of it?

HP Pavilion dv5z customizable Notebook PC

KS878AV

* – Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)

* – AMD Turion(TM) X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-82 (2.2GHz)

* – 15.4" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)

* – 4GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)

* – 256MB ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3450 Graphics

* – FREE Upgrade to 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive from 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

* – Webcam Only

* – HP Color Matching Keyboard

* – 802.11b/g WLAN

* – No Modem

* – SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support

* – No TV Tuner w/remote control

* – 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

* – Microsoft(R) Works 9.0

* – HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Answer 1

The specs are just fine, in fact, more than most people need for standard computing.  If there is an option for 3GB of RAM and you want to save some money, go for that instead.  Windows XP 32-Bit will not use the full 4GB, more likely somewhere between 3 and 3.5.

It really all depends on what you want to do with the computer.  If you're someone that downloads a ton of music and movies, or plays games, you might want to look into a bigger hard drive.  If you work with graphics a lot, you might want to see if they offer a higher resolution screen.  If you're trying to optimize your speed, you might want to look at the Intel Core 2 Duo models and maybe a 7200 RPM hard drive (if available).  It's all relative.

On a side note, in my experience I've found HP laptops to be of very poor quality electronically, and they tend to fail (typically motherboards) sooner than competing brands.  I usually don't have much good to say about Dell, but their laptops do seem to outlast the HPs on a regular basis.  I would take a look at Toshiba, if you can find one for a good price (Office Depot has a lot of really good sales on Toshibas, look in their newspaper ads).  They seem to last a bit longer than the others.