HP's Pavilion ZE2000Z

by Andrew Ku — Friday, September 09, 2005, 01:00 PM EDT

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Construction: Build, Appearance, Size

Construction: Build, Appearance, Size

A Value Mobile Notebook...

After a second glance at the ZE2000Z, we realized we were probably half wrong when we mentioned the ZE2000 was cased in carbon fiber metal alloy. That seems to be what the silver portion of the casing is composed of (either that or polycarbonate). The silver part of the chassis is fairly scratch resistant, but since it is a lighter silver shade the scratches might seem more visible in good lighting. The black part of the chassis (on the bottom) is stiffer and thicker than the silver material and is much more scratch and impact resistant, and that seems to be made of ABS plastic. Anything roughly sharp like the tip of a screwdriver will still make a dent.

The notebook uses a cross between a sliding clip and a push release to unsecure the display, as the push release unlatches two security hooks on the display lid.

Front (left to right):

LEDs (power status - orange when on, hard drive activity - orange when active, battery charge status - orange when charging)
microphone jack
headphone jack

The expansion port, 6-in-1 card reader, and 4-pin IEEE1394 Firewire port are only available with the productivity port configuration of the ZE2000Z. The expansion port hooks up to HP's XB2000 Notebook Expansion Base, which can be purchased for an additional $249 and opens up several more options. It comes with HP's wireless keyboard and mouse, but it also allows you to add a 3.5" desktop hard drive via the housing module. In our opinion, you probably don't need this unless you plan to use it as a base for multimedia functions, i.e. to output video to a TV or to take advantage of the XB2000's larger Harmon Kardon speakers, which make the audio experience superb. As far as the other features go, we recommend configuring it with the productivity port configuration only if you need the "extras."