Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
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HP 17.3" Quad-Core Laptop
$469.99 + $5 Standard Shipping
Condition: Refurbished

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

2704 on PassMark. Think I'll pass.

Yay... A quality product from the 10th most hated company in the US of A.

**according to Yahoo... which probably deserves to be somewhere on the list

GURABoy wrote:2704 on PassMark. Think I'll pass.

Yea, not much online but the price difference is nominal across online vendors and B & M.

Have an AMD HP DV7 refurb. Never again. Never. For the money get a decent Toshiba or spend more on a Lenovo.

GURABoy wrote:2704 on PassMark. Think I'll pass.

Here is a link to the passmarks.

Why bother looking up all the information and not provide a cited source? Woot is a "show me" crowd so it's always best to provide links to your examples.

I think Woot mixed up the tech.woot offer with this one. XD They have batteries over there...

what that guy said. I have had many laptops and HP /Compaq both have been piles of crap that fall apart way too fast and they will do their best to blame you if it's under warranty so that they do not have to cover it...In theory a line in the middle of my monity caused by the way it would beand the moddle during opening and closing was caused by watter damage...who knew?!!??!

Darksoul13 wrote:Yea, not much online but the price difference is nominal across online vendors and B & M.

Have an AMD HP DV7 refurb. Never again. Never. For the money get a decent Toshiba or spend more on a Lenovo.

chrismcclure wrote:what that guy said. I have had many laptops and HP /Compaq both have been piles of crap that fall apart way too fast and they will do their best to blame you if it's under warranty so that they do not have to cover it.

That's why I bought my HP desktop at Costco - they have a private in-house tech support team. They've been very helpful w/glitches. Will probably get a laptop or tablet there w/my tax return.

Also both my brothers are IT dept managers at large facilities and excellent resources if I can catch them when they have a spare moment.

I figure I'm covered.

I have the sister to this one - mine has the Intel Quad Core. The Intel chip version is worth owning, AMD...not so much...

Darksoul13 wrote:Have an AMD HP DV7 refurb. Never again.

As a counter-example, my MIL had an AMD DV7 for 4 years, used daily with zero problems except that she has pets so the inside of the fan/heat sink would start to clog up with lint/dust/pet hair every few months and need to be thoroughly blown out with one of those canned dusters or it would start to run too hot.
Four years later it was still working but getting outdated, and Vista stinks, so it was replaced with a refurb AMD-based DV7-7000 series very similar to this, and so far so good.

The build quality doesn't look as good as the business line, but actually seems quite decent, with brushed aluminum. The disk probably isn't going to be very fast though, at 5400RPM. An SSD would help immensely.

GURABoy wrote:2704 on PassMark. Think I'll pass.

And if the label said i7-620M or i7-2677M it would get the same scores on that benchmark but everyone would be gushing about how an "i7" is so great and that it's plenty fast because you're usually waiting on the disk or the network or bottlenecked on the GPU anyway...

The integrated ATI GPU on this model also appears to rank above the Intel HD 4000, which many people consider quite decent for anything up to and including light/casual gaming.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video_lookup.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+7640G

Darksoul13 wrote:Yea, not much online but the price difference is nominal across online vendors and B & M.

Have an AMD HP DV7 refurb. Never again. Never. For the money get a decent Toshiba or spend more on a Lenovo.

First laptop I ever bought was this $299 Toshiba I got 3 1/2 years ago. Prices have pretty much been fixed or gone up since then. Specs haven't changed much either.

Though my plain Jane C655 was cheap, I can run virtual machines pretty good to use some legacy programs.

I'll agree on the Toshiba nod with you.

CowboyDann wrote: Here is a link to the passmarks.

Why bother looking up all the information and not provide a cited source? Woot is a "show me" crowd so it's always best to provide links to your examples.

unrelated but congratulations on 666 quality posts

CowboyDann wrote: Here is a link to the passmarks.

Why bother looking up all the information and not provide a cited source? Woot is a "show me" crowd so it's always best to provide links to your examples.

Not everyone is here for posts of the quality nature.

CowboyDann wrote: Here is a link to the passmarks.

Why bother looking up all the information and not provide a cited source? Woot is a "show me" crowd so it's always best to provide links to your examples.

No wonder that processor core was having bad dreams in the product write up ... It must be having an inferiority complex from it's core i5 neighbors

I have a Toshiba laptop, 4 or 5 years old now and I am not getting a new one anytime soon. It just works good, or as my cousin from the south says "Dat puter dun worked gooder boy"
Yes, cousing it does.
When I do go to purchase another it will be a Toshiba. My wife is on her 2nd HP/whatever they are. They suck!

I bought this in October when it had Blu Ray and 8 gig of RAM (for $519). It takes up to 16 Gig of RAM. Great desktop replacement at my office, a 2704 Passmark is fine for my purposes (law office: internet, word processing, PDF generation, electronic case filing, backups to the fast USB 3.0 ports, wireless N networking (although I use ethernet), dual monitors.

When bored I fire up Photoshop or Dreamweaver (CS6) to mess with my website without problems. Or I watch Inception for the upteenth time in Blu Ray. I never game so I never have to think about that. The ONLY downside is the resolution does not match the 1080p of my external monitor for mirroring purposes, not a problem for extended monitors purposes.

My problems have been with Dell desktops and Gateway laptops. This is my third HP/Compaq laptop. One of the HP had a DC power jack problem that was a $99 fix. Since I have a job $99 doesn't freak me out.

I have an older model of the HP dv7. They spec out very nicely for the price, but they are poorly-constructed. I won't be getting another HP.

The dv7 is quite a deal when new (provided you can skip on some of the upgrade "options" and buy much cheaper later). Here, you're saving about $200 off a "new" one of same specification(A8 based).

Personally, I'd hold out for A10*, as seen here http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch.asp?px=FO&scriteria=BE04863#.UPFXWG_oRh0 -- also a refurb, but hey there apples, there's oranges and then there's papaya. Notebookchek's take on the A10: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-A-Series-A10-4600M-Notebook-Processor.74065.0.html. You can also check out the A8 there, as well.

The best hing about these, though, are the screens. I love this screen. Yeah it's 1600x900 instead of 1080p or WUXGA, but its a nice, bright, clear display (as long as you're not outside, or in an overly bright office)

*Ivy Bridge notwithstanding.

Just bought the identical item from Best Buy for $349.95/free shipping. This is no "deal"!

I bought an HP dv7 for $499.00 from Woot in Nov, 2011 that appears to have the same features. I use it in my home office, and it has worked great.

My DV7 is a complete POS. It replaced another HP laptop where the hinges failed and now it has no screen. I purchased both of them because I needed two hard drives (one for OS and applications and the second for data).
Now I do everything on my new 27" iMac. I have a really old Dell that runs on XM to support printing on a Kodak dye-sub printer that only has XP drivers.

loveitch wrote:ive had mine for a while and want to throw it as far as i can often piece of sh<>t

But no example of WHAT is the problem?

Sometimes the problem is located between the chair and the keyboard, so please be more specific.

mrclm wrote:I have the sister to this one - mine has the Intel Quad Core. The Intel chip version is worth owning, AMD...not so much...

I will never have an Intel again. They get way tooo hot and are very noisy (the fan). I never hear my AMD as it is soooo quiet. I hear the Intel on my husband's 24/7. I would love to buy this one for him.

Although I haven't bought anything from HSN, I like how they demonstrate stuff. They were selling an HP computer a week ago which had Windows 8. During their demonstration, a "Windows 8 encountered an error and needs a restart" prompt appeared on the screen and they cut away fast to another computer. Was it due to Windows 8 or the HP computer?

I'm leaning towards the computer. My sister had problems with her HP desktop while my mother has issues with her Compaq laptop (constantly running hot where it shuts off by itself). I, on the other hand, have no issues with my Sony Vaio.

My HP printer runs very nice so I say get one of those and avoid their computers. I'd recommend Sony or Dell instead. I would add Toshiba but I have their netbook and it has given me a few problems (but that could be because it's a netbook).

I have 2 HP desktop computers and 1 Compaq laptop at home. Both the desktops freeze on a regular basis. The laptop charger failed after few months(I replaced it). Wifi failed after about 9 months (started using external wifi). In about 1 and half year there is loose connection where we connect the charger. It is no use to me any more. when I bought my new Desktop I7 (top of the line at that time) it constantly frooze. I spent days/weeks on getting it fixed/replaced by calling customer service. All the calls went to India. All they did was install malware cleaning programs and tried to clean my computer again and again and never agreed to replace the computer. After lot of frustration, I gave up calling the customer service. Either the product should be good or the customer service must be good. This company has nothing that is good; It is the worst unethical company I had ever seen.

If you want to suffer from High Blood Pressure and other related diseases, HP/Compaq are the computers for you.
If Woot cares about customer satisfaction, they should say a big NO for HP/Compaq computers

Hmmm...AMD A8 4500 processor ? Well let's see, I'm pretty sure that my shiny new can of peanuts can handle more than that.

Not sure why nobody caught this one so far (does nobody - except me - actually read the write-ups?), but shouldn't the cores' names be Core0, Core1, Core2 and Core3?

Tsk.

I purchased the same refurbished model at our local Fry's store, it came with a 90 day warranty. Guess what happened at day 120? Fried. The laptop literally smoked. Don't know what was wrong but I am willing to bet it is the same thing that went wrong and why they have to refurbish in the first place.

I am not willing to have this repaired in fear it will die again.

I don't see why HP gets such a bad rap. I have never owned an HP but I would jump on this if it was smaller.

I will add this: Dell always gets a bad rap, I've had my Inspiron 1720 for six years with little to no problems. I just take care of my computer!

cvinroot wrote:Just bought the identical item from Best Buy for $349.95/free shipping. This is no "deal"!

I dont see this at BB --can u post the link ?

repparla wrote:I have 2 HP desktop computers and 1 Compaq laptop at home. Both the desktops freeze on a regular basis. The laptop charger failed after few months(I replaced it). Wifi failed after about 9 months (started using external wifi). In about 1 and half year there is loose connection where we connect the charger. It is no use to me any more. when I bought my new Desktop I7 (top of the line at that time) it constantly frooze. I spent days/weeks on getting it fixed/replaced by calling customer service. All the calls went to India. All they did was install malware cleaning programs and tried to clean my computer again and again and never agreed to replace the computer. After lot of frustration, I gave up calling the customer service. Either the product should be good or the customer service must be good. This company has nothing that is good; It is the worst unethical company I had ever seen.

If you want to suffer from High Blood Pressure and other related diseases, HP/Compaq are the computers for you.
If Woot cares about customer satisfaction, they should say a big NO for HP/Compaq computers

AGREE ! HP warranties are just about worthless and the hassle to get any warranty service is unreal !

Ditto here, works fine for my needs. Light gaming, surfing, portability. My last notebook was an HP as well. Served me fine for about 4 years, this was a nice upgrade. So far no worries.

*edit* Forgot to mention, my last HP ran hot, added a laptop cooler and was good to go. This one seems to run cooler but still use the cooler. Insurance.

michael2255 wrote:I bought this in October when it had Blu Ray and 8 gig of RAM (for $519). It takes up to 16 Gig of RAM. Great desktop replacement at my office, a 2704 Passmark is fine for my purposes (law office: internet, word processing, PDF generation, electronic case filing, backups to the fast USB 3.0 ports, wireless N networking (although I use ethernet), dual monitors.

When bored I fire up Photoshop or Dreamweaver (CS6) to mess with my website without problems. Or I watch Inception for the upteenth time in Blu Ray. I never game so I never have to think about that. The ONLY downside is the resolution does not match the 1080p of my external monitor for mirroring purposes, not a problem for extended monitors purposes.

My problems have been with Dell desktops and Gateway laptops. This is my third HP/Compaq laptop. One of the HP had a DC power jack problem that was a $99 fix. Since I have a job $99 doesn't freak me out.

Lowery51 wrote: HP warranties are just about worthless and the hassle to get any warranty service is unreal !

Disagree! The few times I've needed to contact HP support over the years I've actually had fast and positive experiences. The most recent was actually for an HP TouchPad that had its screen turn orange early on. I got what sounded like a native English speaker, who just wanted me to email a photo of the screen. I did that, and they advance-exchanged another TouchPad to me. I put the old one into that box and dropped it off at UPS, end of story. The replacement still works fine and is now dual-booting WebOS and CM9. And that was for an already-discontinued consumer product, where I'd normally expect to get the worst support.

Before that was for a battery problem on an Envy 15 (the battery stopped holding a charge and the laptop had CarePack support on it). I was on hold for maybe 30 seconds, got a US-based agent (possibly Canada, but I think actually US and definitely not overseas). He just believed me without any hassle when I told him I'd already updated to the latest firmware. I called on a Thursday afternoon and the replacement battery was at my door by 10am the next morning, and it fixed the problem.

I'm guessing that maybe the low-end consumer products (almost-free printers, $300 laptops, etc) where the profit margin is almost zero get a lower tier of support than the more expensive stuff, or maybe people are just unlucky (or rude and demanding) or call at really busy times? I'm always calm and polite but firm when I contact any kind of customer service or technical support about a problem, whether it's electronics or an appliance or wireless service, etc.

got this when it was on techwoot a month and a half ago. really solid laptop, though I found out 17.3 inches is bigger than I think it is. this thing is massive. also, I've been a linux user for 10 years, but I'm running Windows 7 on it now because after two weeks I couldn't get the proprietary graphics driver to work on linux and it didn't seem like anyone on linux forums has been able to either. without the graphics effects its a pretty mediocre laptop, and I had been planning on using it as a media box (still am), so I cut my losses and reinstalled Win7.

vulcand3 wrote:Ditto here, works fine for my needs. Light gaming, surfing, portability. My last notebook was an HP as well. Served me fine for about 4 years, this was a nice upgrade. So far no worries.

*edit* Forgot to mention, my last HP ran hot, added a laptop cooler and was good to go. This one seems to run cooler but still use the cooler. Insurance.

A cooler is never a bad idea. And don't forget to thoroughly blow out the fan/heat sink area with one of those electronics duster cans at least every few months. If it's been years since you did it, there might be a 1/4" thick carpet of lint/dust/pet hair in the inside almost completely blocking airflow and too thick to be just blown out without chunks of it possibly getting stuck in the fan and jamming it up worse.

I took apart my daughter's friend's Dell laptop the other day and found just that. She had never cleaned it, and it had to be removed with tweezers after taking off the keyboard in order to get all the lint out.

Also don't use a laptop on a pillow or quilt, etc, as that blocks the airflow as well.

k87 wrote:unrelated but congratulations on 666 quality posts

ERMAHGERD.

Take a screenie, someone! :D


EDIT: Awww, too late!

have an hp started overheating and misbehaving before I had it for a year. Never going through hp again.

k87 wrote:unrelated but congratulations on 666 quality posts

Thanks! I've been meaning to try to get this far for a few months now and got really lazy or busy

vipermjb wrote:Not everyone is here for posts of the quality nature.

Yes but just posting a number isn't very helpful. You can't be 100% certain the information is accurate unless you find the sources. I know this first hand from having my information double checked and being wrong. Posting a link just makes your information more reliable.