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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
Good Value for the Price
I didn't expect to buy this. First, I *hate* white electronics (they usually look cheap and like they should carry the Fisher Price logo). Second, I know people who have had serious issues with HP laptop motherboards. However, last week Staples had it for about two hundred bucks less than its MSRP which was about two hundred less than I expected to pay for these specs...
Published 10 months ago by Jules
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24 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Great deal but I believe I got a used/refurbished piece..!! :-(
I paid full price for this HP DV4 1540US laptop on November 5th 2009. I received the delivery of the computer promptly on Monday November 9th 2009. But when I opened the box it felt like I got a used/refurbished computer
Computer was loosely placed in the box without any cover. The power cord was open and placed loosely on the top of the computer....The user manual...
Published 9 months ago by Bhairav H. Mehta
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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
Good Value for the Price, November 2, 2009
I didn't expect to buy this. First, I *hate* white electronics (they usually look cheap and like they should carry the Fisher Price logo). Second, I know people who have had serious issues with HP laptop motherboards. However, last week Staples had it for about two hundred bucks less than its MSRP which was about two hundred less than I expected to pay for these specs. I couldn't resist.
I'm happy with the design. First, the white is not so bad. It has a shiny "pearl" like surface, a subtle graphic design on the cover/wrist rests and black and silver trim. This all makes it look more grown up and stylish than other white laptops. Second, compared to other laptops with these specs it's not too big or heavy. It's in-between a netbook and most full sized laptops. Also, the weight can be reduced by half a pound by swapping out the DVD drive for a dummy piece which is included.
I'm overall happy with the performance and quality. Seems fast and smooth for the most part, and I'm not currently having any problems with it. But I had a couple of initial problems. First, I had to take the first one I got back due to a stuck pixel that I couldn't unstick with any software programs. I didn't want to risk voiding the warranty with any physical methods. The second one I got was stuck-pixel-free. However, I was having serious issues playing internet video. That was a big deal to me. I tried a live chat rep - I think he was illiterate - he kept asking for info I had already provided, completely misconstrued my problem and even when I explained it for the 3rd time, he offered completely inappropriate solutions (e.g. program specific solutions, when I had told him it was in all programs). Somewhat dubious, I finally called tech support. I got a guy who was GREAT. Granted it took us over an hour of troubleshooting, but he finally figured it out. The issue was the wi-fi card driver. It just needed to be updated with the newest, which was posted on HP's site. So, I highly recommend checking HP's site for the latest driver updates, especially if you're having this issue.
And I agree with the other reviewer about the battery - 2 to 3 hours is what you can reasonably expect, but it depends on what you are doing. And yes, it is very quiet. Also, I should note that I did not get the rectangular remote shown on the bottom of this page with mine. I only got the small card one shown in the pictures up top. So, I don't think that other remote comes with it. (EDIT: Since I posted this review, Amazon has replaced the picture of the remote, it now shows a correct remote).
Just in case, I picked up Squaretrade's 3rd party extended warranty. It was a great price compared to Staples' and HP's plans. And it will protect me if this ends up being a lemon or if my dog flies into the cord and knocks it off the coffee table.
***UPDATE*** Good thing I got that Squaretrade warranty. I was carrying it from one room to the other with the cord and the cord's loop caught on a doorknob forcing everything out of my hand when I took my next step, and that was the end of my DV4-1540US. Hard drive survived, but screen didn't and Squaretrade reimbursed instead of fixing. I had planned on just buying the exact same thing, but learned it's been discontinued. The DV4-2170US seems to be its successor, basically being the same except with an upgraded processor (i5).
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
Nice Laptop - I'm Happy, November 26, 2009
This review is from: HP Pavilion DV4-1541US 14.1-Inch Espresso Laptop - Up to 4.25 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)
Since my Dell laptop is seven years old, I've been looking for a replacement for the last few months. There are so many options that it was hard to make a choice. Since I bought a Sony Vaio for my wife recently - the VGN-NW270F, I had a good laptop to compare to this HP DV4.
You basically have two general choices to make: do you want a powerful laptop that can do lots of things, but has a shorter batter life or do you want a lighter less powerful laptop which has an extended life. I went with the power laptop which the HP is.
In general, I'm very happy and impressed. The HP is a bit smaller - 14" vs 15.6", but I actually prefer the smaller form factor. The 15.6 is more a desktop replacement size. They both have the same 320 GB hard drive and plenty of other ports and 4 GB or ram. I wanted an HDMI port and both have this feature. When you connect the HP to my 42" TV the screen looks sharp and stunning. I can now watch internet video and ripped movies on my big screen. One feature the Sony has is the ability to play Blue Ray disks, but since I don't own any of those, it's not a factor.
The HP does have a nice Recovery partition and a few other features, but I don't use them. The Sony has a better metal body, keyboard and track pad area (I use a real mouse.), but the HP is ok.
Windows 7 is a joy to work with and even though I bought a manual, I haven't had to crack it open yet. I've gone from XP to Windows 7 without a hitch.
Pros
Fast bootup and performance
One click to turn wireless on and off.
Fantastic HDMI video to home TV
Cons
Case and keyboard not as nice as Sony Vaio.
Track area doesn't have the nice feel of a Sony
A little bit of junkware you need to uninstall.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Flawless in every form, November 7, 2009
This review is from: HP Pavilion DV4-1541US 14.1-Inch Espresso Laptop - Up to 4.25 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)
Ordered this over the weekend, what a superb machine i mean super quiet, really fast, doesn't heat up and has all the latest multimedia features. I removed the optical drive (slide and remove) and lost about half a pound on the weight. Battery is great gave me 3.5hrs. I don't have any complaints. Do yourself a favor and ignore the other two reviews. For $689 this is a steal.
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24 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
Great deal but I believe I got a used/refurbished piece..!! :-(, November 14, 2009
I paid full price for this HP DV4 1540US laptop on November 5th 2009. I received the delivery of the computer promptly on Monday November 9th 2009. But when I opened the box it felt like I got a used/refurbished computer
Computer was loosely placed in the box without any cover. The power cord was open and placed loosely on the top of the computer....The user manual was open and placed on the computer instead of its designated location...I was very disappointed with the quality of packaging...It felt like the computer was opened used and then sent to me...It was very disappointing to get this kind of service quality from Amazon...
...I was so excited when I ordered the new computer after almost 5 years...(My Dell Dimension 5100 desktop died on me week before!! so decided to get a new computer)..but this made me rethink/doubt about Amazon's commitment to customer satisfaction and quality.
Please keep this in mind before ordering electronics from Amazon.com.
HP Pavilion DV4-1540US 14.1-Inch White Laptop - Up to 4.25 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Nice laptop, super quiet, October 30, 2009
I got this laptop this week from Staples deal, around $[...] after all trade-in, rebates and tax included. It's a very nice laptop w/ white color, look sharp, easy set up, runs very fast, and super super quiet when it's on, almost all features included. I especially like the remote control. The only draw-back is the battery life - seems it didn't last 4.25 hrs as it described, only around 3.5hrs. Overall, it's absolutly a good-buy for around [...] hundred bucks.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Very Satisfied, December 21, 2009
We received our HP Pavililion DV4-1547SB about a month ago. At the same time we got the computer we bought an extended battery. One of the first things we did when we gor the computer is use the camera to see our great grandson who was about a week old and hear his cooing. We live in Kalamazoo, Michigan and our great grandson lives in Ottowas, Canada. What a thrill for my wife and I to enjoy this technology. The picture and sound were so clear. And of course, our grandson and his wife could also see us through the unboard camera located in the cover of this computer.
The computer is fast with the use of Windows 7, and by using PDF, I was able to send my Christmas with all its graphics by email to many friends and relatives. This got my message out guickly and without the cost of postage.
My wife sits down with the computer on her lap to play games and send emails. I use the computer to write articles. I use both Word and Word Perfect for my word processing.
I am 77 years old and my wife is 79, and we find this computer easy to use and fast. We looked up the manual on the internet, copied it, punched holes in the edge of the manual and placed iit in a notebook, so we can read up on any fine points we need to learn how to navigate.
Rev. Donald H. Severance
We are very satisfied with this product.
Rev. Donald H. Severance
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Very Bad Touch Pad, December 20, 2009
This review is from: HP Pavilion DV4-1541US 14.1-Inch Espresso Laptop - Up to 4.25 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)
Very Bad Touch Pad: I got this laptop 2 days back. It is a great performance laptop, good "Price to Performance" buy - only if you plan to use a mouse with it. The Touch Pad provided is really bad. Its very difficult to point to a specific location, and due to the type of material used to make the touch pad - its difficult for you to select the text with cursor. Its slippery sometimes and sticky other times.
I will try explaining this problem to Amazon for a return, since I intend to use this laptop without a mouse, on a couch or in areas where carrying a mouse is not convenient. If you plan on buying it - please try using it at Best Buy or HH Gregg for some time before ordering it online. I believe some other reviews reported similar problems.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Horrible, HP laptops overheat and last a year at the most, bad invesment., March 4, 2010
This review is from: HP Pavilion DV4-1541US 14.1-Inch Espresso Laptop - Up to 4.25 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)
ATTENTION:
HP laptops will give you nothing but problems in the end. Do not purchase HP laptops, they are over priced and will be of no benefit to you in the end. To those who enjoy spending thousands of dollars for a paper weight then go ahead. Once the problems happens dont expect HP support to help you either, I have read more compaints about HP support than I can count and I myself had the terrible experience of dealing with them. In adidition if HP continues to treat its customers with this lack om empathy they won't even be around long enough to help you with your fualty computer your about to purchase. Guys, honestly just don't do it.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
My computer doesn't work, January 12, 2010
I bought the computer in the internet, in amazon.com. It arrived yesterday, I turned it on and all I see is a message NO BOOTABLE DEVICE. INSERT BOOT DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY. I dont know what to do,it is written in the box that Windows 7 is already installed. There wasnt any cd in the box. The computer arrived perfectly but I cant start Windows because this message is always appearing.
I sent an email to HP and they gave me a few solutions that didn't work and I still can't use my computer because the Windows 7 doesn't start. I am waiting for a solution from the store.
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So Far, So Good, April 28, 2010
It seems that there is a mixed bag a user experiences with the HP-dv4. So, I will throw in my two cents, be it similar to others here. My wife and I had been using a Dell 8600 desktop for a few years. We packed it with the maximum speed possible and HDD space that was logical. I did not want to do too much though, knowing that Windows 7 was on the horizon. We have been satisfied with XP on the old Dell. Once W-7 hit the streets, we thought maybe it was time to dump the non-portibility and see if we could make the move over to a laptop. I read a bunch of reviews for this product and others in the $500 to $800 range and settled on the HP.
The Gateway looked intriging with more features than that of the HP dv4 (and a slightly lower price). And the Dell equivalent was also appealing ("tank-like" build quality). But, with Gateway there seems to be a slew of troubles. The overall "cheapness" (sorry Frank Z.; I just like the term for descripton here) of the Gateway just took it out of the running. And with the Dell (as sturdy as they are and reputation to boot), are on the high-end of the price-point for a medium level laptop (of which this dv4 is also). With the Dell, to get the features the dv4 had, you are on the high end of this price range and possibly getting outside of the range we were trying to stay in. I looked at Sony and IBM, but the Sony (though a really well built and an ergo-nice unit) was again priced high vs. the features of the dv4. And the IBM seemed to have lately just turned the corner on quality. I mean the corner that it turned was to the "dark side".
As you can tell, I am making most of my decision based on others and my 'gut-feel" with some touch time at the retail outlets, like Best Buy. This laptop just has that better feel to it. Construction is fairly solid, keyboard feels very good (not Mac-like, but much better feel that say the Gateway or IBM), layout around the keyboard is logical (I like the touch-sensor volume and wi-fi). Speakers are of great reputation (Altec Lansing), but average sonic quality. Oh well, what can you expect from a laptop. Others have mentioned the touch pad was a little quirky straight out of the box. But, I worked that out in the pointers features option. So, it works well now. The HP Media Center is not what I would chose, but this laptop is mostly for my wife to use and not me. She is happy with it as is. The DVD drive functions fine. There are enough IO connections that we would never run out. Another USB connection would have been nice, as others have mentioned. But, where would it go? No more room on either side of the unit.... And, the output through HDMI is great. Movies on the DVD player look great on our 47" Samsung LCD. Even the TV shows that we miss and watch on network web sites look good on the same output-to-TV.
So, being light users that we are (some of the reason of going down from desktop to laptop - no need for all the bulk and physical "anchoring") this unit is "so far, so good". We have had it since January of 2010 and I hope that some of the problems encountered by other owners does not befall us.
This review / opinion may not help you make your decison. But, as with others that I read before buying, those personal opinions did help point me to the HP dv4 to make sure I at least give them a try at taking my money.. Maybe this guys opinion might lead you to beleive in your own "gut feel". Go try it at a retailer and see how it feels to you....
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