Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion dv5030us 15.4" Laptop (AMD Turion 64 Mobile Processor ML-37, 1024 MB RAM, 100 GB Hard Drive, LightScribe Drive)

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

 

 

I purchased this laptop in January 05 from Office Max for $1100 and was blown away by what was packet into the confines of its slim(ish) body. Since I recieved it its gone through the worst possible environment I could think of for any electrical device i.e. occational sand storms, high dust/air saturation, often working in temperatures of +35c, and transported daily by backpack (non padded) in +45c temps.

One would think that I have it out for this notebook, but thats not the case. I just require a lot out of my electronics. This HP is well constructed, quite and powerful (for 2005 technology). After two years in its original configuration I'm now upgrading the current 100gb 4200rpm hard drive to a deskstar 200gb 7200rpm, and the memory from 1gb to 2gb. This should get this old feller screaming and able to transfer my video and audio without hesitation. I hope with these upgrades mine will last for another year or two.

Overall, I highly recommend this notebook for anyone wanting a low priced, high performance, reliable (in my case) computer.

Mine has an AMD Turion 64 2.0 ghz ML-37 processor that really gets with it, even when encoding mp3 files. I went to a lot of trouble to find this one with XP vs Vista for good reasons. Vista looks pretty but is lame. Battery life is exactly what its suppose to be 2 HRs. Its light weight, thin, very functional and fast. I had to get a mini hub for all my add-ons but thats it... great laptop. I would definately recommend this one with XP.. mainly because you won't have to disable all the lame Vista stuff to start using it and it will run all your XP software without a hitch. BTW the touchpad is also great tho I am using a wireless notebook usb mouse too. Best of all... I shopped around and found this one refurbished for $621.. so I bought a 3 yr warranty ($200 more) to be safe, but its been working great so far for the 8 mo I have owned it. So I have a 3 yr super fast machine for 800 ish. Its a really great machine for that little invested.

I've had mine for less than a year... HP has been in posession of it for about 1/3 of that time... and still has it for the exact same problem... the display died.

To add insult to injury... the current repair is being delayed (until after my warantee runs out?) because of a back-order of the "part required to repair it)... (oh geeh, could it be a design flaw??)

They insist on trying to sell me an extended warantee (which WON'T cover the display) every time I call to see when I'll get it back. (They said I'd have it December 6, 2006... more than a month ago!)

There seems to be a structural weakness in the design of the display. If you subject it to normal wear and tear (I commute daily)... the display will first show a vertical band on the left side kinda like a bad video overlay... then in a few days it'll change to completely vertical stripes.

My previous HP laptop died of old age... and I still have the display panel from it as parts... working.

Don't trust HP when they say you don't need to back up the hard drive either... they seem hell bend on trashing your data.

Their support doesn't seem to be US based, and they have fairly poor phone connectivity.

I'm going to write this one off... and get an Acer.

--Mike--

This system is a complete POS! I have had less than a year and have had nothing but problems...and HP customer service..the worst. If you have a couple of spare hours to take care of problem and dont mind being transfered from India to Houston to Costa Rica to PaloAlto all on the same call and still got nothing accomplished. Customer Service fails to listen to their customers and forget about anyone returning your call. There are some serious hardware design problems with this unit or they got [...] parts from their suppliers.