I just bought the Hewlett Packard zt1190 with a 3 year warranty tacked on (to cover me for law school) but I came across some information on google computer groups that got me worrying. It’s something about the graphics/video processor chip or something being slow because of a shared memory problem. I purchased the computer primarily because the price was excellent and because it got a fairly glowing review on CNET.com (an 8 as opposed to the Inspiron’s 7). Now that I’ve spent 2400$ I’m sort of worried. I am not a gamer-I am a student and will be using this computer primarily for word processing, internet surfing, law research and playing DVDs. It’s the DVD part that is worrying me! Should I have any concerns…look for anything specific when it arrives? Any help you could give me in sort of facile computer terminology would be helpful. I am in IT so I’m not a complete lay person but I’m not more than two steps ahead of your average computer person-just to give you a basis of how much I would be able to understand. I have a lovely group of hardware engineers to give the machine to test for me at work-anything I should ask them to do specifically in regards to my concerns? Or should I just pop in a DVD and wait with bated breath to see if it actually plays? The groups on google were mentioning issues regarding the DVD player. Also, I know about the screen resolution issue-that doesn’t bother me. Thanks!
http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x5ee55e938a10d6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html
http://bizforums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x59e55e938a10d6118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html
It you take the res to 800 x 600 the DVD’s will play fine and the quality differential will be negligible. The shared memory S3 video chipset is not optimized for moving video. If you reduce the screen resolution or color depth while playing DVDs it should perform acceptably.
A good player like WinDVD can also make a world of difference.
You do realize there is a $ 100. rebate available for this system direct from HP.