Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I write this review with a heavy heart, because I have to admit, when it was working, I was in love with the z545. It was, hands down, the coolest piece of technology I had ever purchased. The dual DVR was phenomenal, easy to use, and produced a MUCH better picture through DVI video outputs than my Tivo Series 2 (which still can support only the awful composite video standard). Adding and viewing photos and videos was simple, DVD picture was fantastic, HP Tunes worked great.
All in all, I waas ecstatic over the z545 ... until the problems began. The first was that, when using the z545 in "computer mode" (e.g., surfing the internet, etc. through XP), the screen image was cropped off on all four sides so that the start bar, task bar, icons, etc. were all offscreen. I read all the FAQs, guides, and spent hours with HP technical support (who, to their credit, genuinely tried hard to fix the problem). Nothing worked, and ultimately the only solution HP could come up with was either to use an S-video cable in place of DVI (which would ruin the picture quality for TV and all the other non-PC options) or to turn down the resolution on my TV (a similar non-solution). I have a widescreen, 16X9 big screen rear projection HDTV, and I cannot believe that HP did not provide for its "media center" that is supposed to replace all your home theatre pieces to work with such a TV -- who do they think is buying the z545 if not a technophile home theatre buff?? -- but, alas, they could not find a solution.
Nonetheless, I might have been able to live with less with less than optimal PC performance from the z545 because all of the media center features were, in a word, phenomenal. However, even in Media Center mode, I started encountering too many glitches, e.g., the machine would freeze coming out of sleep mode, it would lock up when changing channels, and it would sometimes "change" the channel only to replace it with a blank screen while channel surfing.
These glitches were just too many and too frequent to let me keep a toy that cost me $1800. Such a shame, because when working the z545 was a dream. Five stars when it worked, but in the end just too glitchy to keep. I returned it after a week and a half and almost daily troubleshooting. In a few generations it will be a must-have product, but right now, in my experience, the reliability and stability just is not there.
Click Here to see more reviews about: HP Digital Entertainment Center z545 - DT - 1 x P4 530 / 3 GHz - RAM 512 MB - HDD 1 x 200 GB , Personal Media Drive 1 x 160 GB - DVDRW (+R DL) - Radeon X300 SE - Gigabit Ethernet - WLAN : 802.11b/g - Win XP MCE 2005 - Monitor : none
Bring home the home entertainment with HP's new Digital Entertainment Center! This sleek, black, brushed-aluminum device houses control of your TV, music, movies, and photos under one "roof", with a design that blends with your home theater equipment. You get loads of storage space plus dual TV tuners!
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