HP Pavilion Media Center Dv9385ea Entertainment

...one of the top end Hp pavilion laptop with a 17inch screen and excellent specification, although it does come at a price and a hefty one at that.

Speed:

With a dual core 1.83 GHz Intel Centrino processor and 2GB of RAM this laptop is very fast. Start up time is speedy, applications open up quickly, big files load equally speedily too. The dual core processor means several applications can be handled at once and several ...
...fast as the 2 GHz Hp Pavilion dv9399ea but nothing that is too noticeable, not for a £300 price difference at least.

Look and Feel:

As HP put it themselves - Wrapped up in the HP Imprint finish, this sleek and shiny notebook will look good at home or on the road. The finish is superb and it doesn’t scratch really easily, dent, feel really cheap or any of the things you might expect from a good looking finish. On the ... more

This is one of the top end Hp pavilion laptop with a 17inch screen and excellent specification, although it does come at a price and a hefty one at that.

With a dual core 1.83 GHz Intel Centrino processor and 2GB of RAM this laptop is very fast. Start up time is speedy, applications open up quickly, big files load equally speedily too. The dual core processor means several applications can be handled at once and several different processes as well. There can be some lag on opening up huge files but nothing that is unexpected – even the very best of computers have lag. It isn’t as fast as the 2 GHz Hp Pavilion dv9399ea but nothing that is too noticeable, not for a £300 price difference at least.

As HP put it themselves - Wrapped up in the HP Imprint finish, this sleek and shiny notebook will look good at home or on the road. The finish is superb and it doesn’t scratch really easily, dent, feel really cheap or any of the things you might expect from a good looking finish. On the other hand, the whole laptop does feel a bit plastic like in places but is generally sturdy; although not what I or many other people for that matter would describe as robust. You should not buy this laptop if you are going to be dropping it about, but if you want a portable laptop you will be taking good care with, this will be okay – especially if you have a good bag to carry it in. It is on the larger side and more heavy as a result and this of course makes it less portable and rival models more preferable if portability is a main issue, but otherwise this is still okay for travelling about with.

With a hard drive capacity of 240 GB split into two separate 120 GB hard drives this certainly doesn't lack hard-drive space. The two separate hard drives are extremely useful as they allow much better organisation and you can for instance, save business work on one hard drive and photographs, games or anything ‘fun’ on the other, not mixing them up. They also mean that the speed of this laptop is kept at a maximum as rather than loading up a huge hard drive worth of data, they can load up each one separately and lag is kept to a minimum.

As I mentioned with the looks and feel of this laptop, I would not describe this laptop as being robust but if you take good care of it, it will remain durable. There will be a few scratches after using it for several months but only the kind of scratches that any piece of electronic equipment suffers over time and being used and nothing to worry about at all, especially since you can only see them when you are looking for them. The durability goes hand in hand with the robustness, as long as you look after this laptop, it will remain durable too. Just do not buy this laptop if you are going to smashing it about in a backpack, travelling to and from work everyday, it is not because it will not be okay if you do so, but there are better products on the market for such a situation.

The ease of use is fine, the media controls which are found above the keyboard allow easy and quick control over the volume, changing music tracks or DVD chapters, easy and quick access to DVD play and a quick play button that allows you quick access to all the media playing capabilities of this laptop. The inbuilt mouse pad is fine, it is not as practical as a mouse and nothing in comparison but if you do not have the ability to use a mouse, say you are on the move for instance then the inbuilt mouse pad is adequate.

The extra features on this laptop are superb. There is almost total wireless connectivity which includes Bluetooth and wifi, allowing connectivity with most new mobile phones and any wireless internet connection. There is a 5 in one media card reader which can read all of the following formats: SD Memory Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, xD-Picture Card. The remote control that comes with the laptop works fine from a reasonable range and even fits into a slot into the left hand side of the laptop so that it can be easily stored away until it is wanted. The speakers are fine for playing music and movies and only become distorted at their maximum levels which far surpass the noise levels anyone should require for home use. There are three USB ports allowing a mouse to be plugged in with two more spaces still available for USB memory sticks, an external keypad or any other USB devices. There is also a DVD±RW drive and this works fine, it like the majority of laptops should not be used heavily if possible but can happily write and read large volumes of discs if required. The in-built webcam and microphones I have found to be excellent, the quality of both is fine and for sake of ease of use, you couldn't really ask for anything more than them being built in and even complimenting the overall look of the laptop too. The software that comes with the laptop allows all of the extra features to be used – for instance, a voice recorder and windows movie maker for the webcam and microphones.

I never found much of a need to comprehensively use the instruction manual, but on the occasions I did, all the information I needed and wanted was there and it was more than sufficient.

A one year warranty with parts and labour, and with pick-up and return is provided – which really, is more than adequate as if anything is to go wrong, it is most likely to do within the first few months of purchase. Hp are also from what I know of them, renowned for providing a good customer service and so manufacturer support should be no issue at all really.

At £1400 RRP this laptop is obviously a highly priced laptop, it is aimed for businessmen and those after a high performance laptop that are prepared to fork out the cash. If you look about (online shops and the use of a price comparison website will get you there pretty quick) you will find this laptop for £1350 or so but unfortunately nothing significantly less. However, frankly, unless you are a businessman (or woman for that matter) I question anyone purchasing this laptop and that is not because it isn’t good, it is, but for the money you can get so much more. You only have to look at an Apple Mac Notebook to find a better or similar performance for hundreds of pounds less, and you can find similar performing laptops by lesser known brands for much less too. If you are a businessman however and you are after a top windows running laptop then this is going to be for you. You won’t find a better laptop by a top brand for anything less and you won’t find a better laptop for anything more either, not at the moment and not unless you are going to fork out an awful lot more.

The price is extreme and the whole laptop could be more robust, at times it feels like you could break it if you press just slightly too hard in the wrong place and you certainly wouldn’t want to drop this by accident. The big screen size drains the battery relatively quickly too. Portability because of the whole size and weight is not ideal either.

This laptop looks great, the performance is generally excellent, and the extra features are fantastic. The screen size and quality is top notch (17 inch, wide-screen and bright view display).

An excellent laptop but not worth the money unless you really are forking out for business purposes or graphic design purposes – the latter of which would be unwise unless you really don’t get on with apple macs. If you are after performance and happy not to use a windows operated system, you only need to look at an Apple Mac Notebook to find a laptop that can easily compete with this one. Or if you are after a similar performing laptop, look at lesser known brands that don’t concentrate on looks or extra features to the same extent as this Hp laptop and concentrate on core components only instead.

...less