Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion DV7-1261WM 17-inch Laptop With BLU-RAY

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll be brief.
The screen is nice and bright, but for some people 1440x900 is not enough for a 17" screen. It wasn't a concern of mine, and the screen looks great.
The bronze looks nice for the first few months, but since it's just painted on and not part of the plastic or anything, like with an Asus or something like that, it begins to wear off.
The keyboard is difficult to see in some lighting conditions; the white paint blends into the bronze color (which looks grey most of the time, by the way).
The mousepad doesn't have the right amount of friction since it's just shiny plastic/metal. It gets better with use as finger oils make it more slippery, but the oils show up clearly on the mousepad and the plastic wrist rests.
The support was very good, but I needed it more than I should have. The power cord leads going from the cable to the metal part that goes inside the line-in port break easily with cable flex, requiring replacement of the cable. This has been necessary twice so far, in less than a year of ownership.
The speakers are very good, as is the webcam. They are loud and they sound great for laptop speakers.
Battery life started around 1:40, battery deteriorated over time and now lasts about 1:20 on power saving mode.
Blu-ray works well but the built-in software doesn't work with many discs that have advanced features. I tried every leading Blu-ray software player and found that ArcSoft TotalMedia Theater works the best with this drive, so that's what I would suggest.
Processor is fast enough and responds quickly but generates too much heat and noise, as is a common problem I've had with AMD processors.
Video card is good enough for casual gaming; games like Half-Life 2 can be played fluidly on high settings, and new games like Just Cause 2 can be played okay on lower settings.

I read other reviews on this computer and had a few concerns. I have owned this machine for two weeks now and find all the complaints people had have not appeared here. Battery is just warm, machine is very fast,it's just all around great. I would suggest this machine to my own mother.

Many shipping issues, received wrong product at first. This computer is powerful and feature laden but is not as user friendly as my first HP Laptop I bought 3 years ago. I blame that mostly on the Vista operating system. Hope to get the Windows 7 upgrade soon.