I've bought this notebook about half a year ago, opened it, and get a bit disappointed that they only provide Windows Vista for this machine. The OS is built in which means it's in a dedicated partition, and installs quickly from there. The big problem is, that you can't make partitions with this installer! I had to make partitions with an external program AFTER I've installed Vista. ( Which made very hard to have multiple OSs installed ( creating a Ubuntu/Vista system was a struggle. Anyway, Ubuntu runs fine.
I've tried installing Windows XP, but for that I had to change a few BIOS settings, which was not that hard, but it took me a few minutes of forum browsing, and I was afraid of changing BIOS settings, but it works well ( currently I'm using this notebook with XP ).
With XP, the notebook became much faster that with Vista. I didn't join the fighting that XP or Vista is the better one, I rely on experience. This machine just runs better with XP.
Altough it's a business notebook, considering the parts it's made of, it's an all-round machine, good processor, dedicated video card, etc. I actually use it for writing, music production, programming and gaming. Most games runs fine ( on low graphics ), I've played Burnout Paradise and It was quite satisfactory. Cubase, Reason, and Adobe Audition worked fine..
BUT
There's three problems I came across, which if I know earlier, I wouldn't have bought this notebook.
1. The chassis is quite rigid, but the display cannot be closed entirely. There is no lock to hold it there. It never opened by itself, but moves a bit. And the upper side of the notebook is just not rigid enough, it moves, you can push it like a car's bonnet.
2. Hot. The chassis can get very hot under heavy use, or if it's on your lap. A notebook cooler is advised, but it's very annoying to carry a huge piece of metal to cool it. Kills portability.
( and one more little annoying thing, the touchpad buttons are actually switches, it's hard to get used to it, but I almost always use an external mouse (which HP doesn't give you in the box ) )
These things are not that bad of course, and can be solved BUT
The notebook freezes. It get stuck, freezes for seconds, of minutes maybe, than works again. This happens a LOT, and without warning. Not under heavy usage, but anytime. With XP this is les frequent, but with Vista I could hardly watch a movie without experiencing this. The sound and picture loops for minutes. It made live sound recording IMPOSSIBLE. It started looping 2 times while writing this review, whilist the only two programs running are Firefox, and Winamp.
I'm planning to visit the HP guys, they might fix it. I don't know if it's a usual problem, or just mine, but extremely annoying.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
(+) cool and quite robust trackpad, good display,64-bit windows 7 (-) few connectors,dell drivers only, not realy for gameing (most models), finger print prone!
HP laptops are notorious for sticking and freezing, come to think of it, so are their desktops. I always build my own computers and very rarely run into serious problems. My brother bought a HP and had problems constantly and parts changed frequently.
Jul 22nd, 2009
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