After the whole dv6/dv7/dv6000/9000/tx1000 debacle, I'm very leery of a DV7. Especially when I have seen even the G60s go down in flames...

I've seen far too many dv-series laptops come into my shop, dead, or with serious issues. We don't sell or recommend HP for that reason. Not even my co-worker's father, who works for HP, can recommend his own company's product right now.

radi0j0hn wrote:Never fully base you opinion on a repair person: they only see the broken ones. It's like people with contact lenses: you only notice the ones who are having trouble with them.

My wife used a similar HP professionally and it has worked flawlessly.

But at the same time, it's the repair people who can tell you what they see in for service the most often. I see plenty of HPs, Compaqs, and non-Asus chassis based Gateways... and very few Acers, Asus, Lenovos, and Toshibas... If people buy as many Ford Tauruses, as they do Saturn L200s, but the L200s break down more often...

I've recently tried, and then re-allocated to a coworker, a similar HP laptop. The laptop I tried was a 15", but looked very, very similar to the model pictured here on today's woot. I believe most, if not all, of my complaints with the 15" model will apply to this one as well.

* speakers -
I don't expect to hear hi-fi from laptop speakers. But my company relies upon software telephony and one day I didn't have my USB headset with me. The speakers on the laptop were so poor that even with the volume sliders all set to max I could not hear the person at the other end of the conversation well enough to carry on a conversation.

* touchpad - I've used touchpads for almost 20 years. I generally don't bother plugging in a mouse. On this touchpad, I had a lot of trouble with multi-touch scrolling. I also could not consistently use click the mouse buttons as intended. Most of the time I would move the cursor .5 inches on the screen when I tried to left-click. Other times I'd accidentally right-click. This wasn't simply a matter of getting used to the touchpad - I worked on this laptop for two weeks, and didn't substantially improve before giving up on the model.

* HDD LED - HP put the HDD LED on the left edge of the laptop, facing sideways. WIthout craning your head to the side and looking directly at the edge of the laptop, it is impossible to see the LED.

* Fn-keys - The function keys would, by default, perform the special functions (brightness, volume, toggle wireless, etc...). It is necessary to hold the Fn key down to access the *standard* F-key functions. This is opposite normal behavior and I could find no way to change this behavior. (I didn't look in the BIOS, to be fair.)

* Ethernet Jack LEDs - I *think* there were no activity/link LEDs on the ethernet jack of this laptop, but I'm not sure if that problem was on this laptop, or another I saw recently.

PRO:
The HP was the first laptop I've had with a fingerprint swipe. I ignored it at first, thinking of it as a gimmick. Then I tried it out, and thought it was a great convenience.

I replaced the laptop with a ThinkPad that is superior to the HP in almost every respect. BUT, the Lenovo fingerprint swipe software is much worse, IMO, than what came with the HP. I can't compare the two to any other fingerprint swipe system, but at this point I think the HP's was excellent.

I have an older 17" HP and am tempted to get this one as an upgrade. Mine is just used as a small semi-portable desktop PC and it works well in this role. My current HP had the Nvidia problem and the board was replaced for free out of warranty, that was OK and not HP's fault. The HDD died after a reasonable service life but nothing else has needed replacement. I plug a mouse into it and do not care about the trackpad. Likewise I do not play computer games so I am not concerned about high performance.

HP was annoyingly unwilling to provide Win7 support for my current laptop however. I am running Win7 with driver support via random strangers on the interwebs and it took a few iterations to get it stable. At least I think it's stable. HP IMO were total jerkfaces to not support Win7 on a laptop sold only a year or so before it came out, well within the product lifecycle.

If I needed to replace the laptop I'm typing on now I'd buy this. I might buy it just for the upgrade to HDMI out and blu-ray.

Do yourself a favor, and run to the nearest exit! DO NOT buy a HP Pavillion computer. After a lifetime of buying computers, it is the worst decision I ever made. It is just horrible. I've had one, custom built in China, for 4 years, and I have had nothing but trouble. It locks up, it shuts down, it was loaded with tons of garbage commercial software that even HP Tech Support can't help me get rid of. The battery life was terrible. It's hotter than a frying pan. There is absolutely nothing good about the HP Pavillion. It's possible that the Compaq division, acquired by HP, makes a better product, I don't know. I promised myself that I will convey this message as a Woot member everytime Woot makes the terrible mistake of putting Pavillions on their website!

oelschlegel wrote:woot forgot to mention, it's got a fingerprint reader, too.

Does it have a web cam too?

As a person with an HP piece of garbage (yes, garbage because I'm trying to figure out how to dispose of it) in the back of my car right now, I can wholeheartedly NOT recommend HP. Everything I read after mine died after little use over 2 years basically says that their laptops have major problems with their motherboards and generally have a quality issue. I had 3 repair shops all say stay far away from HP and one could even tell me the brand and model of my laptop when I just said I had a laptop with a motherboard problem. If you're in the market for a new laptop, keep looking.

I got a 17.3" HP laptop less than three years ago and it was a very regretful purchase. It overheated on me constantly and needed multiple repairs until I finally went to a smaller Toshiba. It was also loaded with tons of junk that was a pain to get rid of. I guess it was a decent desktop replacement in terms of size but not performance. I refuse to buy an HP laptop again.

I bought a similar stat laptop from HP last Christmas (Probook 5730 17.3") and with the exception of the blu-ray player, I paid 2x as much.

HP is a solid company, the laptop has been great, I would not hesitate to buy one. HP is really trying to go after the overpriced Apple line with their Pavilion, Probook, and Elitebook laptops that are similarly speced, similar quality, but at huge values

I bought one of these the last time they come up on Woot. LOVE IT. The screen is incredible, processor speed perfect. Very glad I made this purchase.

meaneypat wrote:BOUGHT ONE A FEW WEEKS AGO ON HERE, SAME MODEL, PIECE OF JUNK----

Thanks for te detailed review ... very helpful!

rykrosgt wrote:After the whole dv6/dv7/dv6000/9000/tx1000 debacle, I'm very leery of a DV7. Especially when I have seen even the G60s go down in flames...

I've seen far too many dv-series laptops come into my shop, dead, or with serious issues. We don't sell or recommend HP for that reason. Not even my co-worker's father, who works for HP, can recommend his own company's product right now.



But at the same time, it's the repair people who can tell you what they see in for service the most often. I see plenty of HPs, Compaqs, and non-Asus chassis based Gateways... and very few Acers, Asus, Lenovos, and Toshibas... If people buy as many Ford Tauruses, as they do Saturn L200s, but the L200s break down more often...

But what you don't know is what percentage of total units sold are lemons. If one company sells 20x the product, you will see more defects than a company that gets one-tenth that amount to market. It's like the "Macs don't get viruses" rumor. Until recently, there were not enough sold to make it worth a hackers time, so they went after Windows machines.

I have a laptop with this track pad on it, and I really don't mind it at all. I do experience the issue of moving while I click, but that takes some practice to figure out how to stop doing. It is very sensitive, so any movement will correspond with your hand. Also, it's much larger than most pads I had used prior (possibly because the buttons are included sensitive portion of the pad) so I can utilize all of the space instead of picking my finger up and clicking again.

waitingforjune wrote:Never owned one myself, but I work in the Geek Squad at Best Buy, so I have to deal with HP laptops all the time. The trackpads on these things are absolute garbage. Between that and all the crap bloatware they throw on these things, I'd never buy an HP laptop, especially not a refurb.

i bought an older one of these for my girlfriend and the touch-pad is garbage. It is difficult to click and i had to update the drivers just to make it usable. she doesn't take it many places so usually it's on her desk with a mouse attached. I've also heard that they've made improvements since the model i bought.

Not really a good to me? I bought an i3 (brand new) for $400 at Fry's. I realize was not a 17" like this one ... but still.

dumyfou wrote:i bought an older one of these for my girlfriend and the touch-pad is garbage. It is difficult to click and i had to update the drivers just to make it usable. she doesn't take it many places so usually it's on her desk with a mouse attached. I've also heard that they've made improvements since the model i bought.

I wanted to add that other than the touch-pad the laptop itself is great. she loves it and I've had more problems with the much more expensive top of the line dell i purchased for myself.

I bought this in March from woot. In 2 months I have been able to use it one week. It has been at HP twice to repair and yesterday I spent 2 hours talking to HP India while they instructed me how to take out the pieces and parts like motherboard, RAM, memory and things I had never seen before to execute a HARD restart of the PC. When it went to HP they put in new keyboard, unfrooze it and did other things when it went back to them. Unless you have an interest in learning about the inside of a computer BUY A NEW PC!! Yes it is guaranteed but how many times does a reconditioned computer need to be fixed in 2 months?? Well so far it is 4!! GP service is the best but do you really want to find out??

I bought a DV6 17" from woot two years ago and i have had no problems with it at all. It took about two hours to get rid of all the software junk, after that it is still going strong. I also have a HP desktop that is still going strong after 3 years from woot. Personally I think This is a pretty good deal."just for all the naysayers out there".HP sells more computers than anyone, thats why you see more in repair shops. Makes sense.

My daughter owns a 2008 Honda Accord, the neighbor owns the same 2008 Honda Accord. The neighbor's Accord has 28,000 miles on it and only had it brought in for brakes. My daughter's Accord lives in the shop for things that are going bad that should never go bad at any age or mileage on any car.

We own 2 HP laptops, a G60 and a netbook. My daughter has been using the $&!7 out of the G60 for college for 2 years and it never gives one single bit of trouble... yes, Win 7 64 bit. The netbook with XP is also fine.
The bottom line is some products work fine for some and not for others. I will never buy another Honda because of my experience with that company. Do I recommend HP for a laptop? Yes.

I prefer refurbs... Means someone sat down and worked on it and checked it out for any quirks... Where as when they come off the assembly line they just drop them in a box and load it on a truck...and only 1 out of 50 might be tested for a short period of time. I've never had a problem with a refurbished product.

As for it being an HP... well take it apart, take a Toshiba apart, take an Acer apart, ect ect.. and you'll find "Hann Star" or "Chei Mei" on the mainboard and case. These things are all manufactured by 3 main company's. When you buy a brand name on a laptop your just buying their bloat ware and tech support.

All the batteries internally are the same brand (remember the battery recall a few years back?) They will all have hard drives from the lowest bidder, same with the ram.

Truth is all new electronics suck... Most stuff now is all unregulated junk made in China crap that big companies (Like HP, Toshiba, Acer, Some Dells, Gateway, ect) bid on.

Anyways...

Be sure to blow out your vents with compressed air from time to time. I have repaired hundreds of laptops that have failed because of cat hair and dust blocking air flow in the heat sink just after the fan. Also make sure not to block the fan vents with your cloths.... blankets, ect.

Ninmir wrote:The only problem I've ever had with HP laptops [...] is the overheating.

My 3 year old HP Pavillion laptop was overheating and shutting down whenever I used the graphics card (games) - we recently took it apart, blew out the fans, and it's as good as new.

The SquareTrade Laptop Reliabilty report from Nov. 2009 pretty clearly indicates HP as the worst.

It's possible that the Pro models are better.

http://www.squaretrade.com/htm/pdf/SquareTrade_laptop_reliability_1109.pdf

17 inch screen and Blu-ray drive but without the resolution to really take advantage of Blu-ray movies. Does HP actually make a true high resolution laptop?

vloebel wrote:My 3 year old HP Pavillion laptop was overheating and shutting down whenever I used the graphics card (games) - we recently took it apart, blew out the fans, and it's as good as new.

I would wager that the overheating laptop had Vista in it... an OS that needs 3 gigs of ram just to run itself. A great analogy would be a car having a 400 horsepower engine and needing a 350 of it just to allow itself enough power to idle in park. My Dell ran the bearings out of the CPU fan because it ran so hot. It worked beautifully once I removed Vista and put Win 7 in it.

oelschlegel wrote:i didn't realize people still "gamed" using the arrow keys.

RTS games. Also just easier to web browse

docnhh wrote:Do yourself a favor, and run to the nearest exit! DO NOT buy a HP Pavillion computer. After a lifetime of buying computers, it is the worst decision I ever made. It is just horrible. I've had one, custom built in China, for 4 years, and I have had nothing but trouble. It locks up, it shuts down, it was loaded with tons of garbage commercial software that even HP Tech Support can't help me get rid of. The battery life was terrible. It's hotter than a frying pan. There is absolutely nothing good about the HP Pavillion. It's possible that the Compaq division, acquired by HP, makes a better product, I don't know. I promised myself that I will convey this message as a Woot member everytime Woot makes the terrible mistake of putting Pavillions on their website!

Did you know that any computer you buy... ANY, comes inundated with Bloatware and teaseware. I would understand if this was your very first purchase of a pre-built computer, you wouldn't know better.

There's a great little utility that comes pre-installed in all Windows operating systems. It is called "Add & Remove Software". Just remove everything that says Trial, HP and games. Even the so-called HP diagnostics, doctor, fixer or whatever they call it... remove it. It is useless. Even the free 3 month antivirus programs. Just remove it and buy the one you want.

I have owned two HP laptops in my life and both of them have been garbage. They overheat, the hinges break and HP will not stand behind their product. I will never buy another HP laptop again.

edgemou wrote:Apple MacBook Pro MC725LL/A Laptop is a complete game monster. Just check it out.

why the heck would you suggest a mac for gaming.

its overpriced, un customizable and some games are made exclusively for windows.

for true pc gaming get a desktop, if your set on getting a laptop then this particular hp will run very basic games but dont expect to use anything much higher than low-medium settings. the ram and processor are fine but the 4250 graphics card cant handle the new games very well.

btw, i hope you people complaining about overheating arnt using laptops for gaming.

im betting with basic maintenance (dont clog fan, duh) and normal on the go infrequent use this thing runs fine.

bahrowal wrote:I wonder if this is any good for gaming or not.
May somebody drop a review?

No. Just no. If you want to game for around 400 get an Xbox or a ps3. If you want to seriously game on a laptop your going to spend at least 1500 for a cheap one and top of the line will run you 2-3000. Don't by Hp I bought a similar model 2 years ago and my 17" G4 power book 1.0 ghz that I bought 8 years ago runs circles around this piece

I'm going to have to join the chorus recommending against purchasing an HP of this line. As some have pointed out, take my words as a helpdesk technician with a grain of salt, but I think that given the subjectivity inherent in any review (especially in electronics) that my opinion still has merit.

I can't tell whether it's just because my clientele buys a disproportionate amount of HP Pavilions or what, but I see an overwhelming number of tickets regarding these machines. While I've seen some pretty gnarly problems on these machines, any one case doesn't speak to the utter inferiority of the Pavilion dvXs nearly as well as the trends of many cases taken in aggregate. I've noticed a huge problem with overheating, which cascades into cracked plastic casing, fried mobos, screen and screen mount damage, severe performance drain and pitiful system longevity. Gaming on this laptop will slowly kill it.

I won't comment on the bloatware other than to say it's easily enough gotten rid of, but in terms of non-hardware issues I have to note that HPs tech support has been an unending blight upon my career. While these results may not be typical to some users, I have been frequently refused the ability to even speak to a tech support representative without first purchasing a ludicrously overpriced incident warranty.

Are my claims universal? Absolutely not. Do all computers experience these same problems, regardless of manufacturer? More or less. If you look hard enough you can find horror stories about every brand, that much is a given, and odds are that you'll buy this computer and have no problems with it. But in my personal and professional opinion HP has broken the curve for problem incidence and poor service.

On a more unsubstantiated note, I simply don't trust HP to make good computers. Their appeal is that their PCs are consistently cheaper than competing models with the same specifications. It occurs to me that to offer computers with more features at a lower price, their profit margin has to rest upon cutting corners in engineering -- you very much get what you pay for with these computers.

When approaching purchasing a new computer, I've recently been operating under two assumptions: 1) Within a given price range, most computers will have indistinguishable differences in performance and features; 2) Your computer will break, maybe frequently. The real value of a computer, especially a laptop, will over time be increasingly concentrated in the service and maintenance afforded you by the manufacturer.


Just my two cents, and remember kids: Backup Early, Backup Often -- It's the American Way.

The last HP laptop I got from woot went bad after 24 hours, LCD fail - vertical lines and scrambling after literally 5 hours of use, and I didn't drop it like a Lamuellan either... It's currently at the warehouse getting fixed......................................................................................................................................................

JUNK. Why buy this? With such greater technology out there, saving a little now with this will cost you double in the long run. Get a real laptop, not a virus/malware bag like this.

I agree with those who have had terrible experiences with HP. I've had HP products like printers and laptops and the one thing that drives me insane is all the "bloatware" they pre-load onto these things. All this obnoxious "customer service" crap software... I know I'll never buy HP again...

ssrhodes wrote:I bought one of these the last time they come up on Woot. LOVE IT. The screen is incredible, processor speed perfect. Very glad I made this purchase.

Are you sure it was the same one? I got one that was $20 more expensive (DV7-4165DX instead of the DV7-4153cl) but it has the Phenom II N850, a triple core processor instead of the dual core Turion II P540 this has. The Phenom is rated about 34% faster.

It looks like it has the same chassis and graphics chips, but it might be a different processor.

BTW, I am very happy with the DV7-4165DX. I wouldn't say it's great at anything, but nothing about it disappointed me either. It was a pretty good value for the money.

... but don't expect to go gaming with it. Starcraft II worked fine in low quality modes, but Portal 2 struggled to keep up the frame rates to something playable. It was just barely playable (some of the tricky timing moves become nigh impossible) but it wasn't pleasant. I didn't buy it as a gaming computer though. It was a snap to hook up to my HD TV (with sound) through the HDMI port and THAT was good.

I will chime in to support others who stay far away from HP/Compaq; I accept neither for any kind of service anymore and I'm sure not in the market for them.

Will never purchase an HP item ever again. HP sold us a large flatscreen TV that was pricey. We purchased it based on their reputation.Customer service refused to talk to me because I was 1 day short of my warranty. The item was deemed defective and publicly posted that this model had a flaw that HP couldn't fix so they pulled the item from the market. It seemed like many people had posted that their TVs only lasted just 12 months and then the glitch occurred. By the first day of the second year of ownership it just doesn't turn on.Everyone was stuck. I also received numerous extremely nasty emails filled with expletives from HP.I would purchase a multiple year Square trade warranty when purchasing anything HP. Oh, and their call center is not in the USA.

Customer service was great - used often. PC is lousy. Motherboard went in 1 year. A waste of money.

Joining the "my experience with hp" bandwagon...

At the moment I have two hps. A company-issued EliteBook 2740p Tablet, and my personal dm3. I travel a lot, and normally have both of them with me, both are 6-8 months old.

I am continually disappointed by the EliteBook. Although it sports an i5 processor & max RAM, it blazes along like molasses on a cool January morning. I doubt that XP Tablet edition and all the other “vital programs” the company installs on it are helping much, but regardless, it's in the "do not recommend" category.

In contrast, I really like the dm3. It's running W7HP, and I use it mainly for OpenOffice, 720p video (both on-screen and out through the HDMI port), and general web-surfing. It boots fast & battery life is excellent, which really helps when flying coach on international flights. The touch-pad takes some getting used to…it’s the chrome-tone one…but other than, that I’ve had nothing but good luck with it.

I have to say though, that the late-2008 base model MacBook I bought my bride is head and shoulders better than either of them. I intended to replace it last Christmas, but there was really no reason, so we decided to give it another year. When I hand down the dm3 to one of the kids, I expect it will be replaced with a MacBook Air.

I’m actually considering today’s woot!-featured hp for my parents (60s). For what they do, it would probably work pretty well…

klovings wrote:As a person with an HP piece of garbage (yes, garbage because I'm trying to figure out how to dispose of it) in the back of my car right now, I can wholeheartedly NOT recommend HP. Everything I read after mine died after little use over 2 years basically says that their laptops have major problems with their motherboards and generally have a quality issue. I had 3 repair shops all say stay far away from HP and one could even tell me the brand and model of my laptop when I just said I had a laptop with a motherboard problem. If you're in the market for a new laptop, keep looking.

I have to agree. Me and my friend both bought HP laptops less than two years ago, and they've both since fallen apart due to poor build quality and serious heat issues.