Stylish and slimline, good 2GB memory, excellent graphics
Disadvantages:
2 major hardware failures in 16 months . Battery already "dead" .
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
I purchased a Pavilion DV2175 in December 2006 mainly for the purposes of online "virtual reality" gaming. The people at PC World said that it should be highly suitable for this, as it is marketed as an "entertainment laptop" suitable for all manner of graphically demanding applications.
The computer itself is very good. Certainly the power of the unit is excellent, with the 2 GB memory and dual core processor making an easy meal of any gaming applications. However, after just 7 months the unit failed, and was returned to HP for servicing. After a couple of weeks HP returned it, with a note saying that the "main board" had been replaced. This, I assume, meant the motherboard. Very unusual for a motherboard to fail in such a short space of time.
About 2 months after getting the laptop back, the cooling fan started to make a lot of noise (although admittedly it quietens down after about 5 minutes), and also the battery is now proving to be unable to hold charge, so that will need replacing. Just 7 months after the last repair, low and behold, the laptop has failed AGAIN. And amazingly enough, the fault is once again with the motherboard. Fortunately I have extended cover.
The Pavilion DV2175 is a very nice looking, slim and stylish laptop, but in terms of general robustness, it is quite pathetic. I have had some shoddy old PCs over the years, but I have never had one whose motherboard fails every 7 months.
I believe that the unit simply runs far too hot, and is not capable of standing up to graphically intensive games. Seeing as the unit is marketed and sold as a "games and entertainment laptop", and even makes a big play of the fact that it contains a good quality NVidia Geforce 7200 graphics card, this suggests to me that the unit is simply not fit for purpose.
I have since bought a 2nd laptop as a stand-by, it is Dell Inspiron 1520, 2/3 the price of the HP, much more powerful, albeit not as slim or stylish looking.
I would certainly not purchase HP laptops again. With so much competition around, there is no reason to give HP a second chance.
More details
Memory / capacity
Good
Ease of use
Easy
Range of Extra Features
Good
Instruction manual
Good
Manufacturer Support
Satisfactory
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