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Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Solved my power problems on my HP Comment: If you have an HP laptop with a defective power jack, getting an expansion base is probably the low price solution to your problem, and that is what I bought this for, a cheap fix. As a temporary solution to the problem, it has worked for me. I rarely use my laptop for other than office work.
One downside is that your laptop gets grounded to your desktop, for as a power source, lugging this behemoth around isn't going to happen. If your desk space is limited, you can avoid using a secondary keyboard/mouse by doing a little judicious propping up of the thing in the cradle. I'm not that fussy, so this works well for me, ergonomically I think it's an improvement, the cradle provides a very nice rest for your wrists. The sound this puts out is pretty good to, a good bit better than I expected from a clarity and volume standpoint.
There is an A/V cable out there that is hard to find and pricey on eBay that gives you something of a "portable" bypass to the charging issues that this model of HP is notorious for. Customer Rating: Summary: Fixed my power jack issue Comment: After about 2.5 years with my zv5000 series laptop I began having charging problems. I bought a new battery but it only increased how long I could be without the cord if I could get it charged. I went to some forums and talked to a friend at work who happened to have a similar model with the same issue. It appears if you move it around, the jack develops cracks around the solder joint at the motherboard. I found a guy in Michigan who can fix it for roughly $200 but I need to give up the PC for a week or so, backing up data would be must, security another concern, etc. I happened across a docking station at work for one of our laptops and it charged the battery via the connection port. Some time passed and a mail from HP confirmed what I thought so I bought one. Imagine my disappointment when the connector was too large. My zv5000 series has a small port, no number just a PC icon, on the right side of the keyboard. The xb2000 has a large connector on an extendable cable. It has a number 2 with a PC icon on it. The guy I bought from was able to hook me up with the proper adapter and I'm charging the battery via the docking station. I don't know where he found it because I couldn't, even at HP.com. I must not have looked hard enough! So far it's great. The arrangement is a little awkward due to the size of the xb2000 but tolerable. The laptop slides down into the station which covers up most of the touchpad and left/right mouse buttons. I can ease it back out a little and use the touchpad and buttons or a separately purchased wireless mouse/dongle I had for it. I haven't used the included keyboard and mouse yet.
I marked it as 4-star because they should include the adapter(s) for something like this. Luckily, I'd purchased a second charging cord for the laptop so power cords aren't an issue. I think it saved me some money over the repair cost and it also gave me back my laptop. It was a real trick trying to get it to charge prior to the docking station purchase. Customer Rating: Summary: EXCELLENTIA! Comment: I AM VERY SATISFIED WITH THE PURCHASE OF XP XB2000 NOTEBOOK EXPANSION BASE - DOCKING STATION. BECAUSE I HAD A PROBLEM WITH THE ELECTRICAL SYSTEM IN MY HP DESKTOP, IT HAD TO BE DISCARDED UNTIL I FOUND AN ANSWER TO THIS PROBLEM ON THE INTERNET... AND BOUGHT THE DOCKING STATION Customer Rating: Summary: Disappointment Comment: When I think of a docking station I think of something that makes my laptop have more of the functionality of my PC. In the case of the xb2000 this is not the case, all this thing does is disappoint..
1. The Device does not come with its own power supply so you have to either buy a new power supply like the one that came with your lap top or every time you want to plug your laptop into the docking station you have to get your out your power supply as well.
2. There is no monitor hookup built into the xb2000, this sounds like something that should be standard with all docking stations. If I'm going to spend the extra money to buy one of these things shouldn't it at least have the ability to run a monitor directly though it to instead of having to hook the monitor up through the laptop?
3. No Ports, this thing does not have any PS2 ports only extra USB ports of which my laptop has plenty of.
Unless you're looking for a few more USB and louder speakers this thing is pretty much a waste of money.
Customer Rating: Summary: Some good things and some disappointing Comment: I approve the decision for a laptop maker that has many models to have one docking station support as many models as they can. The xb2000 does what's advertised, but there are areas for product improvement:
* The docking cable is a big, thick heavy thing. A lot of torque is applied to the connector on the laptop when it is installed. Although it works now (new) they should come up with some sort of strain relief for this.
* The docking station does not support high-res VGA, only S-video. So if you have an external monitor at your docking site you have to plug in two cables when you dock -- the VGA cable and the everything else cable.
* The wireless keyboard and mouse are supported by an external wireless pod -- would have been better to be internal.
* Would it kill them to include a power supply inside the unit instead of relying on a (separately purchased) brick power supply?
