14 responses so far ↓

• 1 Meudell

  I have the 1245dx version of this laptop. The 17-inch screen is marvelous and the laptop’s design and the chrome/bronze finish is sharp and makes it look so much more expensive than it actually is. It is not as portable as other laptops but is an acceptable trade-off to have a big screen. The keys are very comfortable and have a nice soft touch, the space bar is short and works well ergonomically, and the keyboard is laid out with number keys off to the right, which is useful. Both for work and for play [media applications], you feel like you have a mini flat screen TV on your desk.

  My review of this laptop is mixed however. This HP Pavilion refreshes slower than the Compaq Presarios my kids have. Also, when changing the appearance of the menu and other texts, there are some fonts that end up with less fidelity - parts of letters are faded! The worse is the white color of the letters/symbols on the keyboard. They are very hard to see against a bronze background. If you look at the keys from the right side at an angle, the letters and symbols are very visible. But who would crank their necks this far to type? When looking directly over the keys, more than half of the letters and symbols are nearly invisible! So much for fashion versus function.

  Other than these complaints, I would still recommend this laptop. Will I buy another one? Yes, but only if they do something about the colors on the keyboard.

• 2 Reviriego

  The flaw is not, as some people have suggested, in the keyboard. It’s in the chrome strip on which the power button rests, along with a volume control, and the single, only, solitary, absolutely-no-other-way-to-do-this, wireless switch. The wireless switch isn’t a positive contact mechanical switch like the power button–it’s a capacitance “touch” location which ceases to function if the chrome strip happens to short against something. This not only turns off the wireless and makes turning it back on virtually impossible, it also causes the audio volume slide area to short, which makes the audio volume dialog strobe on and off repeatedly, accompanied by a cascade of annoying clicks.

  We are returning the laptop to HP for warranty repairs on the hardware, and hoping that the unit comes back completely fixed.

  I think that making the wireless functional only through a single, highly-suspect switch is a bad design. I’ve expressed this view to HP already.

  Beyond that issue (and we have the chrome, not the bronze finish), I think the laptop excels in all other ways. I’ll be happy to see it back and functioning in about…oh, maybe 10 days from now.

• 3 Blanca

  I am fairly pleased with this laptop and think it was a great bargain for the price but the keyboard is very hard to see the letters/numbers, etc.,!!! What was HP thinking when they designed this product?? I’m half tempted to return it but like it otherwise.

• 4 Quintanar

  I think this laptop is practically perfect! I read all of the reviews on amazon before purchasing it, and the only flaw I read was that the grey letters on the keys were difficult to see. I have had no problem in any light or at any angle seeing what is on the keys. I have no complaints! It’s very user friendly and would recommend this laptop for anyone!

• 5 Vagt

  I purchased the dv7-1262us version of this Pavilion notebook from Staples and have been pleasantly surprised with its capabilities. The video card (an Nvidia 9600M GT) handles most modern gaming titles on low-to-moderate graphics settings. I’m not aware of many notebooks below $1,000 that can play GTA 4 in medium resolution, but HP’s dv7 definitely makes the grade here. With the addition of a Blu-Ray ROM drive, the value of this machine becomes even greater.

  There’s ample memory and processor power for handling most tasks with ease. Even though the unit can be upgraded to 8 GB of RAM, I believe most users will find the 4 GB of included memory more than adequate. The biggest performance killer is HP’s Total Care Advisor, which I recommend un-installing once setup is completed.

  Another nice surprise was the machine’s speakers. Typical laptop sound systems are lacking in quality, but the dv7 is one of the best I have heard. Having a sub-woofer on the bottom is probably what makes the difference. Whether you’re listening to music or watching a Blu-Ray movie, the enhanced audio capability is a nice addition.

  My only complaint is the silver, mirror-like touchpad. It is a smudge magnet! That’s a relatively minor issue in my opinion, and certainly doesn’t overshadow the tremendous overall value of the HP dv7.

• 6 Castle

  This is the first computer owned bye the client, and they are loving it and the feature. Great product and the service was great.

• 7 Mangrum

  My family is really enjoying this computer. It is a great home computer. We use this computer for internet, email, photography, watching movies, word processing, and some database development. It is a great computer, great speed, and we got exactly what we thought we were getting. HP made us proud.

  I would recommend this computer to anyone. Great price too.

• 8 Batman

  Everything I throw at this laptop it handles. Only thing I dont suggest (which doesnt have to do with this laptop directly) is not using bitdefender on it. Been in constant back and forth with them since I brought this machine. Other then that completely satisfied. Love how sleek this laptop looks. And HP programs are very usefull

• 9 Judson

  The laptop has worked well and is easy to use. Keyboard responds easily and screen is nice and large. The Vista OS seems less friendly than XP but is OK. Fingerprints do show up easily on the laptop surfaces but wipe off easily. A good deal.

• 10 Chiang

  I am extremely pleased with my purchase. It seems to be everything I expected and perhaps more.

• 11 Lawton

  i’m not a kid, just don’t want my name to show.
  If you want this laptop to stop making heat and stop the fan from turning on do this:

  Click on the Battery Charge Icon in the lower right corner. Select Power Saver mode. Click “more power options”. Under “Power Saver” click “Change Power Settings”. Then in the new window click “Advanced Power Settings” > “Processor Power Management”. Set both minimum processor state to 5% and Maximum processor state to 10-15%(you can even set it to 5%) Click OK.

  Click on the Battery Charge Icon in the lower right corner again. Make sure Power Saver mode is selected. This will keep the fan off and the laptop won’t heat up, while still working fast for browsing the internet, reading PDFs or most other tasks. If you need to run games or watch video just select the HP recommended setting .

  Another tip: you can get some anti glare film from ebay for about $15, it will work with touch screen. And also, at the top right of Internet Explorer there is a Panning Hand that you can use to pan iternet pages with your finger without the scroll bar, it took me 2 months to find it.

  You can email me at crazybike99 AT yahoo DOTCOM with questions

• 12 Valencia

  I bought this computer primarily for doing digital artwork. If I hadn’t needed to replace my laptop, I would have just gotten a Cintiq, but looked into Tablet PCs as a compromise. I did a fair amount of research before settling on this computer, including reading the previous reviews here. Here are my thoughts.

  1.) It does run a bit hot, however, there are many useful products out there to increase ventilation and in some cases actively cool the laptop with fans. I find a simple item that raises the laptop and allows airflow underneath it works perfectly.

  2.) The glossy screen takes some getting used to, but most tablet PCs are going to have one because they’re harder to damage and easier to clean than a matte screen. An anti-glare screen protector does wonders both for reducing the glare and “grainy” effect, as well as offering extra protection against the stylus scratching the screen. The screen is fantastic for watching movies, however.

  3.) It will need some configuring for smooth performance. First, the default performance settings are awful. Before I figured that out, the computer would lag and freeze when doing anything more intensive than web browsing. Second, there is a lot of bloatware installed by HP. A few things are actually useful but mots of it is unecessary and runs automatically, hogging resources. Third, there was a lot of crazy unecessary stuff in the registry. Some of it was information from bloatware I removed, but much of it seemed to be outdated windows updates and references to nonexistent files and folders. After doing these things, it runs beautifully.

  4.) I preferred XP, but Vista isn’t too bad. Though it has some amusing quirks, such as asking you to approve or cancel installations from such “unidentified publishers” as Microsoft

  5.) This tablet pc is Wacom Penabled. This was important to me because I intended to use this PC for artwork. There are other comparably-priced touchscreen/tablet PCs by HP with better overall specs, however, they are NOT penabled, which means no pressure sensitivity. The pressure sensitivity is 256 levels of pressure sensitivity, about equal to a Wacom Graphire tablet. Do not purchase this expecting it to be equal to drawing on a Cintiq, which as over 1,000 levels. All this really offers is the ability to draw right on the screen. The stylus that comes with the laptop appears to be penabled as it has pressure-sensitivity capabilities. However, the wacom penabled stylus I purchased independently seems to be more responsive.

  6.) Pay close attention for any pieces of paper in the package that say “Important: Read This First”. I didn’t, and spent several hours on the phone with HP’s customer support which leaves much to be desired, before fixing the problem.

  Overall, I am very happy with it. There are certainly more powerful tablet PCs available. This one fit my price range and was confirmed as penabled.

• 13 Ahlen

  I bought this and absolutely loved it! However, about two weeks in and the screen vertical switch stopped working. Then, about a week after the screen would just get very colorful and decide to restart the computer if it was not frozen from the screen glitch…making me have to perform a hard re-start..it never bothered to save my document/s I was working on. In the end i would expect an automatic shutdown at least once a day without warning or backing up of whatever I was working on- I am sure this is an OS issue but It definitely turned me off…I called HP support numerous times and gave remote access to which I was told it was “fixed” and OS was fine but restarts still occurred. Also, laptop runs extremely hot! I would have to shield myself from serious pain (I do not consider myself too fragile a person)were I to use it more than say 30min on my lap….also somewhat loud with the fan blowing all that heat out. I ordered from staples and it was to come with bluetooth and I could never get it to work and had to buy an external adapter to utilize my bluetooth accessories. I’ve had HP laptop since I’ve had laptops and I was very disappointed in all the flaws and problems I had with what was to be my “upgrade”.

• 14 Flaherty

  15 years ago I said that I wanted a laptop computer that was the shape and size of a sketchbook, something that would allow me to accurately draw on the screen, dual processing and at least 2 gigs available ram. built in audio, mic, camera. I finally got what i wanted even some things i didn’t think of (thanks HP.) Except no built in scanner in the screen. (but i figure i’ll still have to wait on that one. did they invent it yet?)

  On the whole I have to say i’m pretty pleased. I can run illustrator, photoshop and paint simultaneously. The standard battery isn’t amazing but will last a couple hours no prob and if i ‘m not paying attention and let the battery run down the computer will auto sleep on the last little bit and save everything i’m doing. so far i haven’t lost anything. The wacom technology & pressure sensitive pen (with eraser) are really nice and the handwriting recognition is really groovy once you train it (it also learns as you write).

  As For gaming, WOW runs pretty well and the touch screen is handy in battle. So far graphics are smooth.

  There are only a couple of design flaws. Firstly when in tablet mode the screen auto flips and that’s pretty cool except it turns the camera upside down, secondly sometimes in (some) programs when the screen is rotated the pen will still read as if it is not i.e. on the opposite side of the screen. The quick play is a handy feature, but i wish they had put the button somewhere else because i bump it all the time. any problems are pretty much vista related (no surprise) and likely from programs not intended to be flipped around and rotated all crazy ways.

  Over all I say as a working professional artist I’m pretty happy with this computer.

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