Good results with HP ZV5255 AMD Athlon XP based notebook

FYI,

After lusting for a Dell M60........................I ended up purchasing a
HP Pavilion ZV5255US, AMD Athlon 64 3400+ based notebook for ~$1,400.00 US$.

So far, I'm very pleased. The graphics card is an older Nvidia GeForce 4
440 GO. Not my first choice, given the lack of full OpenGL support, but
compromises had to be made. The hard disk is also a little slow given its
lowly 4200 rpm speed.

I haven't been brave enough to attempt a "SoftQuadro hack", but might if any
serious graphics performance issues arise.

Mike Wilson's "Ship in a bottle" benchmark completes in about 36 seconds at
1680x1050 resolution using SW2005 PR2. It's a little faster at lower
resolutions, but not worth the tradeoff IMO.

It could use more RAM (512MB stock), but seems to be a reasonable option for
a "poor man's" portable SW workstation. FYI, max RAM is 1.25GB.

In regards to HP's technical support, I contacted them via email a couple
times during the first few days of setup and tweaking. They responded
quickly, and for the most part answered my questions satisfactorily. Some
quirks between the "widescreen" LCD display, and an external LCD projector,
but nothing too serious.

It's too bad that the faster hard disk and video in an M60 cost so much
more, but this HP might satisfy many mobile SW users out there.

Disclaimer, these opinions are based on only a few days experience with this
notebook. I'll report back if anything changes.

John