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Loudspeakers

The chassis of the HP laptop leaves room for 3 loudspeakers. In our cheap version with Sempron processor only the two front speakers from Altec Lansing were built in. Still they performed very good.

Viewing angles: When looking from above or beyond on the screen the color are fading very quickly. From the sides the colors do stay longer vivid, but still not very good compared to higher classified displays.

119,3 cd/m² 128,6 cd/m² 114,0 cd/m²
126,1 cd/m² 136,4 cd/m² 117,5 cd/m²
131,3,2 cd/m² 127,1 cd/m² 113,0 cd/m²
Brightness distribution on the screen.

Many thanks to the familiy Svojtko for borrowing us the notebook.

Conclusion

A solid but relatively high weighted beginners notebook with plenty of features. Everybody who searches a cheap notebook for office, internet and other modest usage makes a fine deal with the HP. Still you have to consider it's always working fan and the weight.

Battery Life

The battery life of the Pavilion is average for the built in components. With 2 hours and 44 minutes during surfing it could be used for portable usage (if it wouldn't be that heavy).

During gaming the battery holded 1 hour and 28 minutes. still ok

Reading a text the HP ran 2 hours and 54 minutes (minimum brightness).

Power

Due to its Sempron processor the HP needs much more electric current than Centrino based laptops. Here are the exact measured values:

Minimum (min. brightnes, no Wi-Fi) 26,5 Watt
Idle (max. brightness, Wi-Fi on) 33,0 Watt
Maximum (everything on) 58,1 Watt

Blickwinkelstabilität.
reference image
frontal
from left
from right
from above
from beyond

Performance

3D Mark 2005 comparison
PC Mark 2004 comparison
HD Tune diagram

Tzv 6214EA offers a good office performance. The integrated graphics card from ATI (XPress 200) isn't a good choice for games. Only old games are running flawlessly. Nevertheless, Age of Empires 3 was running (in lowest settings and resolution) judder free.
Negative: The known problem of the ATI RS480 chipset is its bad USB 2.0 transfer rate.

For more information on the performance of the HP notebook refer to the following detailed benchmark results:

3D Mark01
3227 points

3D Mark03
889 points

3D Mark05
449 points

Quake 3 Arena
This old OpenGL based game from ID Software can be played in the highest resolution and highest settings without any problems.
45,7 fps im FOUR.DM_68 Timedemo

PCMark 04:
2819 points

PCMark 05:
1772 points

HD Tune:
Altough we ran HDTune several times without any programs running in the background severe performance drops (see diagram) were recorded.

Transfer Rate Minimum: 12,7 MB/sec (without extremas 16 MB/sek)
Transfer Rate Maximum: 24,9 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average: 21,3 MB/sec
Access Time: 18,3 ms
Burst Rate: 65,9 MB/sec
CPU Usage: 4,8 %

Emmissions

The big, a bit clumsy, body of the HP zv6214EA is designed for fast processsors. Thats why the fan is running all the time with 41,1 dB. The positive side is that we couldn't get the fan to run faster (and louder). And you may believe us - we tried hard! ;-)

Here are the detailed results of the sound level measurements:

Laptop off: 30,5 dB
Laptop on, fan speed 1 of 1: 41,1 dB
+ harddisk 42,8 dB (rattles a bit)
Fan speed 2: I don't know if there is any, but in our test we hadn't found it.
+ DVD drive: max 48,5 dB

Furthermore, the air coming out at the rear of the notebook isn't very warm and thats why the whole notebook stays very cool (max. 35°C on the lower side). Perhaps in a future BIOS version the fans are turned off in Idle mode (there would be room for it in the heat management).

temperature
Temperature on the upper side.
Temperature on the lower side.

Screen

display specs
The diagram shows the warm colours of the display.

The screen on the zb6214EA is WXGA with a widescreen resolution of 1280x900 pixels. It has a matte screen that is averagely lit with 136 cd/m². Enough for indoor use but way too dark for outdoor use in the sun. The measured illumination of 82% (darkest to brightest spot) is above average.

Keyboard & Touchpad

The normally sized keyboard is good to use and very solid. Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that one of our reviewers had problems with it becaus it "swallowed" some keys during typing.

The touchpad is average and works without any problems.
Positive: It can be turned off easily with the button between keyboard and touchpad.

interfaces
Back: Power, display, USB, modem
Left: PC-Card, 2x USB
Right: audio, USB, LAN
Front: no interfaces

Case / Built

The large, chunky chassis of the HP Pavilion zv6000 series laptops is build very good and leaves a very positive impression. The used plastic is feeling sturdy. Only the display lock is somewhat wobbly, but never the less it works perfectly.

Up to Firewire the HP zv 6214 deliveres all useful connections. Positive: Little Icons on top of the case mark all important ports.

Review HP Pavilion zv6214EA (zv6000 series)

The HP zv6214EA is a 7.9 lb, mainstream entry type notebook that comes with an AMD Sempron 3000+ processor, built in Wi-Fi (wireless connectivity) and an ATI Radeon XPRESS 200m integrated graphic card. Detailed information and benchmarks can be found in this laptop review.

Please share our article, every link counts!

Rating

HP Pavillon zv6214EA
Built
94%
Keyboard
76%
Touchpad
92%
Connectivity
85%
Weight
58%
Battery
70%
Display
77%
Games Performance
56%
Applications Performance
62%
Temperature
98%
Noise
72%
Overall Impression
89%
Average
77%

80%

OFFICE *
Weighted Rating

* Weighted Rating Office Notebook:
built 13%, keyboard 13%, mouse 8%, connectivity 7%, weight 6%, battery 8%, display 10%, games performance 1%, application performance 6%, temperature 8%, noise 10%, overall impression 10%

You can find more informations about our rating here (in German!).

HP Pavilion zv6214EA
The Sempron paired with the ATI XPress 200 graphics card is adequate for office work.
Thanks to the permanently running fan, the HP stays cool.
The battery runtine is mediocre (good for the used components).
Nice sounding speakers.
Conclusion: Good priced office notebook from HP!
High quality body.
Icons on the chassis show connections.
Mediocre hinges.
Nice design but a bit clumsy.
Good keyboard.
Button to deactivate the touchpad.
The matte screen has only mediocre viewing angles.

Similar Notebooks

Pro / Contra

Positive

     

  • high quality
  • cool
  • silent fan during games
  • low priced
  • good speakers

Negative

     

  • constantly running fan
  • heavy

Specifications

Processor: AMD Sempron 3200+ 256KB L2 Cache, Cool & Quiet max 62Watt

Mainboard: ATI Radeon RS480 chipset with integtrated graphics

Memory: 2 x 256 MB DDR 333MHz RAM 2,5-3-3-7-10-16 Hyundai Electronics PC2700 (Single Channel) max. 2GB

Grafics Adapter: ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M IGP (integrated, up to 128 MB Shared Memory, 300 MHz clockspeed)

Display: 15,4 inch 16:10 WXGA with  1280x800 pixels (not glossy!)

Harddisk: TOSHIBA MK6025GAS 60 GB 4200rpm

Sound Card: Conexant AMC Audio

Connections: 4 USB 2.0; 1 VGA; 1 RJ-11 modem; 1 S-Video TV-Out; 1 RJ-45 network; 1 dockingstation; 1 earphones; 1 microphone; PC Card (Typ I oder II) CardBus - enabled

Cardreader: -

Network: 10/100 LAN & 54g™ 802.11b/g WLAN

DVD Burner: LG GWA-4082N dual (+/-R, +RW/-RW), Double Layer DVD burner

Dimensions: 36,2 x 28,4 x 4,56 cm 3,6 kg

Battery: Lithium Ionen 63,6 Ah 16,7 V

Warranty: 2 years (3 years optional)

Klaus Hinum, 2006-02-24 (Update: 2013-01-15)