Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion DV4-2167SB 14.1-Inch Laptop (Black)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For the reference, I got the HP Pavilion DV4 black, 64 bit Windows 7 Professional, Intel Core i3 2.13 GHZ. In a few words: coming out of "slow-paced" windows Vista DV2 HP Pav (2 GB Ram, AMD 2 GHZ), this computer is a HUGE improvement in performance and processing speed. Resuming:

PROS:
- Really fast processor;
- Good looking black computer;
- Windows 7 professional pre-installed (works great);
- Nice touch with the detachable CD/DVD drive bay;
- The screen is glossy indeed, but the images are crystal clear;
- Keyboard and touchpad are responsive and easy to the fingers;
- Improved volume control touchpad (more responsive than my previous model);
- Nice surprise the HP Quickweb program, a real time saver;
- Fingerprint reader (never had it before, now it's a new standard in my "buy-a-laptop" book).

CONS:
- Battery life doesn't go as far as advertised, although it's longer than what my previous model ever gave me. Advertised as 4.5 hours max, I'd say it's more like probably 3 hours of decent use.
- Speakers are average-below average (I don't really care since its main use is business, not gaming or music)

The 1 star minus if mainly a fault of the wrongly advertised battery life.

Miguel.

This is the only time I've ever had to return an item for Amazon, and in particular a computer ever. I could have just been unlucky but there seemed to be a weird glitch whenever the screen timed out and I had to enter my password again, it would flicker so I couldn't enter it and had to shutdown to be able to get back in again. It appeared to be a conflict with the fingerprint reader, which I hadn't set up at the time, but I'm only guessing.
That would have probably not been enough for me to send back - I would have tried sorting it out with HP support - except for that when I downloaded the latest MS patches, the computer wouldn't let me boot into windows again, and needed a complete re-image job. Again, could have been just unlucky and MS patches can be a bit problematic but with both combined, I felt there may be something really wrong with the pc and sent it back.
The only other complaint I have, which was something I hadn't picked up at the time of evaluating it on the web, was that I couldn't control the volume by pressing a button on the laptop. It had to be done either by the windows software or by using the remote - which would have been good if I could have been able to tell when the remote was on, but I couldn't which was frustrating.
Otherwise, if the first two problems had been non-existent then I would lived with the third one, as it is a nice laptop and it met the spec that I wanted.
So hopefully I was just unlucky, but my review here anyway just to make potential buyers aware.
Finally I would just like to say how FANTASTIC Amazon return policy is - I got the full refund and the return shipping, which made up for a lot of frustration - thank you Amazon you've made me even more a satisfied customer than I was already!

I bought this laptop after having used a DV4-1280 for a year and I had a lot more problems with this new model compared to then (the 1280 "only" had a disk defect within 6 months). HP downgraded a couple of things since then: Earlier they had a 2/5GHz dual band wireless adapter, it was really nice to use 5G access points directly. This has become a 2GHz only adapter. Also there is no more built-in modem, even though this is something I had not used often before.

The 2167 was a problem from day one, it frequently crashed with blue screens and had issues with the wireless adapter taking too long to associate to networks. The only solution HP support had to offer was to re-install everything and to send in the laptop. They neither made an appropriate effort to diagnosis problems directly nor did the support staff seem to understand issues prior to suggesting (unrelated) changes. A very poor support performance.

I was fortunate enough to not follow their "recipes" and finally found that a defect memory module and faulty driver installation were the cause of the problems. I would recommend when buying this product and finding odd behavior from the start consider returning it to the retailer. Don't hope for great help from HP support!

I purchased this item some months ago, the finish is really good as is the looks. The computer top is not black as is stated, but it rather has a black with some gray squares on it, but very distinct. The only trouble that this computer has given is with the fingerprint reader which gave some trouble at the beginning but was easily fixed with an update.

This is a great little laptop with Windows 7 Pro.
They have been trouble free.
It's too bad they don't make them anymore.

It literally fell apart after 15 months.HP does not stand by their products:
A small crack started near the hinge and the screen literally split apart making it impossible to close and then it just stopped working all together.
This laptop was very carefully taken care of and never abused or dropped.
We brought it in to Best Buy and they said it should have lasted a lot longer than that and they could clearly tell it was never dropped or abused.
Went round and round with HP to no avail. They do not stand by their products. Best Buy gave us a $100 off a new laptop because they felt bad about
the situation and of course we did not purchase another HP and never will !!!

Guys!!! I am looking for a cormputer that I can using together with my Sony HX1, and i buyed this model!! And I Love It!!! I Can watch High Definition Movies!!! I Can Play Counter Strike with 100 fps! It's Wonderfull!!! And your designer is fabulous!! I REALLY RECOMMEND!!!

DV4 is never a simple computer, it is a exact heater, usually open a word file could your CPU at 90% level, works very well in winter, maybe in summer time we could use it cook eggs. Battery due to daily use, will die in half a year, not for sure could go through warranty, there are over 300 pages complaints in the forum, usually my one can continue working 30 min. Touchpad in dv series can easily get damaged and scratched, left and right key too. It is shinning but very easy to get dirt and scratches. Win 7 prem is a good system for hp and that is why I gave an extra star for it.