This purchase was made to be able to get some work done on the commute to and from work, and it seems to be fitting the bill just fine. Honestly, my primary motivation behind purchasing this model versus another was the price. However, it seems completely adequate for many of the tasks one is likely to perform on a laptop: presentations (if you buy software), word processing, etc.
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Software:

Mine came with Windows XP Home Edition. I did find that there was a free upgrade to XP Professional if the laptop was purchased at HP’s web site, but the price was also higher on their site. The ze4540us came with “Word Perfect Productivity Pack,” which consists of a word processor and spreadsheet program (no other Corel tools). While a good enough package by itself, if you are looking to exchange documents with the majority of the free world, you are probably going to end up purchasing Microsoft Office as formulas and formatting are often lost in saving the documents out in any other format than WordPerfect. There are some templates and add-in available on a Corel Website, but it pales in comparison to Microsoft’s breath of available templates and add-ins.

I/O:
1 PCMCIA Slot

2 USB Ports (NOTE: 1.1)

1 S-Video Out

1 port for a keyboard or mouse

There is one serial, parallel and VGA ports.

Built-in ethernet and modem

Hardware:

The built-in CD-RW/DVD drive comes in handy for transferring files (no internal floppy drive), and can come in handy when you want to watch a DVD on a long trip. However, I have found the drive to be disappointing in craftsmanship; the cheap plastic external cover has a tendency to dislodge from the internal part of the drive when opening the drive.

The screen is 15" – pretty good. Perhaps even a little too large. The trade-off of addition weight and size in some other models available may not be worth the additional viewable screen area.

The Altec Lansing speakers are “tinny” sounding, but piping the sound through the headphone jack seems to improve sound quality substantially.

Moving from a desktop keyboard to the laptop does take some getting used to, but I think the key board is pretty standard for a laptop. It also comes with five one-touch buttons to setup shortcuts to applications. The touchpad is fairly decent with the touch-pad equivalent of a wheel mouse. Shortly after purchasing the laptop I downloaded a Windows update which I am blaming for disabling the tap function on the touchpad – while annoying because it took a little bit to find the checkbox to recheck, the problem was easily rectified.

I think they say, with the battery brick, the weight is just over seven pounds. Doesn’t seem too bad to me; however, there are lighter options out there if that is a concern. And speaking of the battery, I get well over two hours of use out of it with multiple power-ups.

Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 799
Operating System: Windows
Processor: Intel Celeron
Processor speed: over 1000
Screen Size: 15 inches
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 31-40