Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Laptop That Has It All, October 17, 2008
The AMD processor is wonderful. Who needs an Intel chip for $100-$200 more? 4 Gigs of RAM, 250 Gig Hard Drive, 17" monitor, and an on board ATI graphics card. It is not a hardcore gaming machine, but this laptop can handle just about anything you can throw at it. This laptop comes equipped a wireless N network card which really does make a huge difference in speed when it comes to the internet. It just takes a few seconds for pages to load and surfing is just about as instantaneous as you can get. It really is the whole package. The 17" screen is great -- it's hard to beat a large screen. Not to mention you also get a side numeric key pad as well in this size.
Compare price vs. feature and this one is hard to beat.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Value for the Business Traveler., October 24, 2008
This review is for a HP Pavilion dv7-1132nr, which is similar and has the same processor and video card.
The Positives:
The 17 inch bright screen is nothing short of spectacular. It does not have an anti-reflective coating, which is good if you need to see a lot of small text or fine detail, but bad if you are in a reflective environment. If you do large spreadsheets, MSProject etc. this is a good choice; however the contrast ratio (black level) for multimedia use is not that good. The speakers and sound are above average for laptops although lacking in the bass range. This is nice because it comes with the Media Center version of Vista.
This laptop is huge, yet very light, with a full numeric key pad and room for a second hard drive on the inside. A large Touch-pad that is easy to use. Convenient additional controls and indicators are located around the keyboard. A convenient concealed SDHC slot just begs for a Vista ReadyBoost dedicated card to be installed (a 4GB max SD card will greatly improve the operation of Vista). The included 64 bit Vista operating system will access future upgrades of up to 8GB of ram.
The integrated Wi-Fi was able to access neighboring networks. This laptop also includes the following connections:
* 1 56K Telephone Modem (RJ-11)
* 1 Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN (RJ -45)
* 3 USB 2.0
* 1 VGA (15-pin)
* 1 HDMI
* 1 combo eSATA or USB 2.0
* 2 headphone-out
* 1 microphone-in
* 1 ExpressCard 54/34 slot
* 1 Infra-Red window
* 1 notebook expansion port-3 (HP Proprietary)
* 1 remote control
Now for the negatives:
The construction of the large screen is not very rigid, and the hinges are tight, to the point that one must use two hands to open the lid, lest it flexes to the point of breakage. The battery life is short so I don't even bother to install the battery (why carry the extra weight) and exclusively use the power cord.
Speaking of the power cord, it exits on the right side, so it may cause some interference with right handed mouse use.
The video card and processor are on the low end and not up to gaming standards, although it is more than adequate for multimedia and business applications. HD video playback is adequate if you use appropriate player software other than the included Microsoft's Media Player.
Except for the Vista Operating System, most of the included software is trial-ware. Some older drivers and utility software will not work with the 64bit Vista.
Conclusion:
In short, this is a good value for a desktop PC replacement for the business traveler.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I really wanted to like it..., December 12, 2008
Summary
=======
If you want to web browse, do easy word or photo processing, or watch DVD's, then this laptop will work for you. And it does look nice. If you have any kind of real-time intensive application, do not expect the 4GB of RAM and dual-core RM-70 processors to save you -- it's a pig. If you can stomach the expert effort to get XP to run, you'll love it (wow, fast, even with the system-limited addressing of only 3GB of the RAM) but the audio drivers will not work, plus you will waste a week of your life. I rushed to buy it and did not realize certain deficiencies due to my own haste, but still, both HP and Microsoft came up short on this one. A friend of mine had the previous generation of this laptop -- a dv8000 with XP Pro with a devoted graphics card. I used both the dv7-1130us and the older dv8000 for two weeks, and just fell in love with the dv8000. I wanted to like the dv7, I really did, but honestly and truly, I have to advise scrutizing users against it. Buy an XP-capable machine, and/or wait for Vista's replacement in the 2010 timeframe.
There are a lot of vitriolic reviews and opinions on the internet today, but this isn't one of them. I really wanted to like this emergency replacement laptop for my 5 1/2 year old, recently dead HP ze5400. I now wish I spent a little more money or looked around more. But's let's first try to be positive:
The Good
========
* Laptop looks sexy. Mine is silver, but this or the bronze color scheme look pretty glitzy. The glowing HP logo on the back looks cool too.
* Beautiful display for rendering photos, movies, etc.
* Light for a 17" laptop, around 6 lbs. Also quite skinny, relieving wrist fatigue for long periods of typing.
* 4GB of fast DDR2 RAM. Also, a second hard drive slot is available for additional HDD, although there's a demerit to this (see The Bad).
The Bad
=======
* The second hard drive position does not include a carrier/bracket to mount it. Online price for these between $40 and 60 -- if you can find them. I predict these will soon become a commodity, but until then, you have to suffer. Not even HP sells them, although the part number is available on the website and in the laptop manual.
* No 1394 firewire support. It does have an eSATA port, but my video camera only has a firewire port -- you have to buy adapters or a new video camera.
* No XP downgrade support. I bought a new, faster 7200 RPM hard drive and managed to load it with my old XP Pro, plus most drivers. However, HP does not yet have a driver for the internal laptop speakers. You can hear audio via the headphone jack, but it's annoying to always have to have headphones to hear any audio. And the effort it takes to do this -- I've been working on computers since 1979 and this was a real pain to get XP to run. This is not for the faint of heart. HP's support website quite unequivocally says they do not support XP downgrades on laptops with OneTouch buttons like the dv5 and dv7, although I cannot help wondering if this may one day change. Currently, I'm using the Vista HDD (and do NOT try a dual boot -- you WILL corrupt at least the Vista if you do -- see more in The Ugly).
* Vista really and truly does have some problems. I don't hate Microsoft. I love Office, and have generally liked XP and Win2000 more than Apple or free Unix OS's. But Vista, my goodness, even with the 4GB of RAM and a dual core runs more slowly on this machine than XP Pro did with 1GB and a Pentium 4 on my old machine. There are lags in typing and mouse clicks. There are program crashes with relatively modern 32 bit programs that won't run on this 64 bit Vista Home Premium OS. I just bought a 2 year, 3 PC license from ZoneAlarms and it won't run on this!! Yes, yes, I know, you can argue that's ZA fault, but believe me, just you wait and buy this machine, you'll see what I mean with your existing software and if you have them, utilities. You can turn off most of the warning messages (thank goodness) but there are still numerable dialog boxes that will not resize, or tell you things you learned 20 years ago. I actually had a dialog box loop, flashing two contentious boxes several hundred times per minute, throttling the CPU's real time. The next time you hear a bunch of geeks putting Vista down, understand it's not just all an anti-Microsoft kick.
* Native screen resolution for the 17" screen is only 1440 x 900, WXGA. My old boat-anchor laptop had a 1680 x 1050 with only a 15" screen. Things don't seem to have progressed much. Indeed, the old laptop was SXGA+, and you can get the dv7-1130us with a WSXGA+ screen, but you must go to the HP website and configure it -- you'll never see a ready-made one with this. I wish store and website merchandisers had some education and would learn to offer these things. Again, you can say this is my fault for not researching enough. But the old laptop could show two, full pages in MS Word at a small but razor-sharp 75% zoom, with it's 15" screen. This new laptop can only show two full pages on MS Word at a virtually unreadable 63%, and it has a 17" screen.
* It can be very hard to read the silkscreened characters on the keyboard, particularly the function keys. When it's dim, you better be a good typer, because the key lettering is unreadable. Also, previous and even certain current HP laptops have slightly roughed key surfaces. The glossy smooth keys on this seemed nice on day 1, but it starts to get annoying. Your opinion may differ.
The Ugly
========
* BIOS - HP specially designed the startup bios to work with Vista on this machine. Booting from dual drives, even if connected via USB or network interfaces, will interfere with the installed SATA HDD. It is not a flexible bios, depending on what you want to do. For those of you wanting to do an XP reversion, look out. Actually, just entering the bios was a horror. Because there was no delay on the bootup, I had to just continuously hit "F2" a few times....this corrupted Vista!! The corruption was so bad, I needed to use the recovery partition, not just the backup DVD-ROM (which you must make yourself when you take the laptop of the box -- please, please, please do this). I've never seen an OS get corrupt just by having to hit a key a few times to enter the bios. Hey Mr Ballmer, can you say "regression test"?
* The trackpad and/or its driver is out of alignment. I am ALWAYS inadvertently closing programs, scrolling, etc when I don't want to be. I will have to disable this. I am closely watching my hand and finger placement every time this happens, thinking that I'm still just getting used to the computer, but for example, after I inadvertently scroll to the top of a large html page and lose my place, I immediately look down to see my fingers approx 3/4 inch from the scroll bar, yet it was scrolling. I see this as an HP issue. I've been typing on this laptop for almost two months now and am still not used to it. It has never taken this long to get used to a different keyboard.
* No PCMCIA support. There is an ExpressCard port, the modern equivalent and replacement port for PCMCIA. But I had a Verizon Wireless PCMCIA modem/phone card and another type of adapter, both now useless. I just bought another parallel port adapter for ExpressCard to use with this laptop, but it unseats all the time. The locking mechanism seems broken. I'm very disappointed in this. For my use, this would have been a deal-killer if I had been aware of it. I know it's kind of fun in a voyeuristic way to see someone buy something without having researched it properly, but I run a small home-based business and needed a new laptop fast. It just never dawned on me that a new laptop wouldn't have PCMCIA slot.
Well, the review is getting pretty long, and there's more I could say, but I think you get the idea. It's a nice laptop to look at, and depending on what you want to do or what software you already own, it may work just fine for you. I know what it's like to read an Amazon review and see some poor soul describe his or her's misfortune with some product, and because you're disconnected from their reality, it all amounts to just some level of interesting reading. All I can say is think carefully before buying this series of laptop. If I've offended any of you who rated it 5 stars, well, that's the purpose of reviews. You rate 5, I rate 2, and somewhere out of it all we get an average score.
UPDATE:
======
Yes, I'm making the review longer (!). XP runs quite well. I have grown to live without the inboard speakers, which is actually nice when I'm working in internet cafes, airports, etc as I never have to worry about accidentally unplugging the headphones and becoming an inadvertent DJ for unwilling listeners around me.
I think there is a driver/processor real-time issue with this laptop. For example, when editing a text-only document in Word 2007, with Real Player playing an MP3 audio file, and Windows Explorer launched, the audio chatters or cuts-in-and-out for 10 seconds. I disabled Zone Alarms anti-virus software, defragged last week, and had no other user-enabled programs in the background or foreground, with 42 system tasks showing on Task Manager, and left the laptop plugged-in (as power save slows down many things). I used to do the exact same type of work on my older HP ze5400, single-core Pentium 4 with 1GB of RAM, running the same software and OS, with the same number of tasks, with no recent defrags, and it almost never interrupted the audio playback, maybe on very rare occasions causing a 1 second delay. This is a poor showing for a computer with double the processor power and more than double the RAM, all running identical versions of Windows and productivity software -- only the drivers and hardware differ.
Also, the power adapter doesn't always work, and hasn't since day 1. I thought this was a simple, intermittent plug or cable, but I've actually been able to measure voltage on it, and when I plug it into the laptop, no charging. Not yet sure if this is a software or hardware fault.
On the plus side, I am still getting a real 3 hours of use when on battery (no wi-fi enabled) -- not bad for a 17 incher. On balance, though, the review stands, 2/5 stars. I am seriously considering alternative laptops. The speed, robustness and security of SSD hard drives has caught my attention, and I expect the dv7 will be my last computer with a rotating HDD, although I don't claim that to be the cause to all my difficulties with this machine. But if you can swing it, I'd consider SSD before buying a computer today, and compensating for the smaller size of these drives with a portable/backup HDD.
FINAL UPDATE:
============
Well, I did it to myself I suppose, but while going through airport security on a very busy day, I inadvertently grasped the laptop too tightly. There is now a break in the screen that suspiciously looks about the size and shape of my thumb! In short, the display is useless. I did not purchase a no-liability warranty, and HP understandably won't cover it, so my dv7-1130us has become a temporary 'desktop', when used with an external VGA monitor.
Once getting it to XP, it operated fairly well, but in truth, it was only about as fast as the 6 year old, HP ze5400 2.4GHz P4 with 1GB RAM it replaced. Me and a co-worker with a similar machine suspect the HP drivers/BIOS or perhaps some bottleneck on the mobo just doesn't allow this laptop to run all that fast. I can disable anti-virus/program controlling software like McAfee or ZoneAlarms, but it never seemed to help speed it up much. I think I will be retiring the dv7-1130 a little early.
The replacement is a brand new, bouncing, baby MacBook Pro 17" (Amazon review Apr 26, 2009). No, it's not a comparable machine, but it seemed like the time to go for a higher-performance laptop, if also higher-cost. It is certainly more durable, which is apparently something I need. As a word of caution, though, I actually have managed to never break a computer, cell phone or two-way radio in 30 years, so I'd suggest being VERY CAREFUL picking up your 1130. HP cannot make sub-$1,000 laptops without reducing some costs, so while I cannot really hold them to any fault for its construction, the size and weight of this laptop requires a little extra care given the relatively thin plastic display housing.
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