HP Pavilion DV96Brand: Hewlett-Packard
Binding: Personal Computers
biggest mistake this year [Posted on 2008-02-20]
my computer came with this program i couldn't get off it. its called vista.
all i feel is rage. whoever is responisible for making this computer all i have to say is this:
i'm glad i got this computer, it helped me realize how much better apple is.
Very nice as HTPC, except for sound card [Posted on 2008-02-29]
I bought this laptop essentially for Windows Media Center. It sits quietly with its lid closed next to my TV recording programs 24/7 and for that purpose it performs very reliably. The laptop's HDMI port interfaces perfectly with my LCD TV. It also comes with a slot-loading tuner card which works decently on SD satellite signals (I don't get HD yet but it's supposed to handle that too).
The laptop also serves as the wireless internet interface in my living room (with the Gyration cordless mouse/keyboard set) and has worked very well. It gets a little warm from constant running -- I have it mounted on four split racquetballs to provide a little air circulation underneath. It operates on Vista Premium so it takes about five minutes to boot or reboot (I've disabled some unnecessary services and startup items which I hope will speed things up).
There were some video problems early on. I'd turn on my TV and sometimes see a narrow purple image of my desktop running horizontally across the screen, requiring a reboot. But that problem hasn't recurred lately, possibly due to automatic Vista and/or HP updates. HP loads a lot of junk on this laptop, unneeded software and free trials, most of which I uninstalled.
My one major complaint about this laptop is the sound card. A machine that HP bills as an "entertainment" laptop should have better sound than the cheap Realtek card that's standard with most cheap laptops. This card transmits hard drive noise through the HDMI port and into my stereo system, a very audible rumble during quiet musical passages or between songs. Fortunately this was easily resolved with an external sound card (i'm using the Edirol UA-1EX, which works well with Vista) but when you spend $1300 for an "entertainment laptop" you shouldn't have to pay more to upgrade the sound.
I haven't used this at all as a regular "pound-on-it" laptop but as a quiet alternative to a desktop or tower HTPC it does just what I need it to do. Five stars if it wasn't for the poor quality sound card.
Poor construction, poor customer service [Posted on 2008-03-03]
HP Pavilion series are not robust, and customer service is poor. The case is plastic and flimsy. Additionally the mother board is thin and tends to crack. There are numerous complaints on the web regarding the power input shorting in a few months due to the mother board cracking around the power input.
Our Pavilion laptop plastic case around the screen cracked 11 months after purchase. It took 5 hours on phone with customer service in India to arrange the laptop to be sent in under warrantee. Warrantee repair involves shipping the laptop by UPS to a repair center.
We recieved computer back from the repair service, and it died 2 weeks later, a week out of warrantee. We had a local repair service have a look at it, and the mother board was too weak with too many cracks to repair. Cost to repair would be $650. We chose to purchase a Dell instead.
We will not be buying another HP product. I have never had a more problematic computer.
Terrible, stay away! [Posted on 2008-04-16]
I own this laptop and have been completely disappointed with it. It randomly crashes and resets (this may be a Vista thing), often the touch pad cuts out, and worst of all, it is SLOW! I develop games and require good 3D support. I figured getting a laptop with an NVidia card would give me good performance. I was completely wrong. This has the worst graphical performance of any laptop I've owned in the past 3 years, including laptops with on-board cards.
I've been disappointed with HP in the past and I should have listened to myself when I doubted buying another HP. Do yourself a favor and avoid this laptop. Even a laptop with an integrated gfx chip will run faster for any graphical application.
HP Pavilion DV9623CL refurbished laptop [Posted on 2008-05-08]
I bought this refurbished laptop at a really good price, $700 USD. It had a lot of features at this price, including two 120gb hard drives, 17" widescreen, bluetooth, media center remote, a decent dual core processor and 2gb of ram.
I had never previously bought a refurbished product before, but it was in pretty much brand new condition and functioned like new. For the price, you would be hard pressed to find something with these sort of specs.
The laptop itself runs smoothly for office applications, and web browsing. Although the graphics card has no dedicated memory, Solidworks runs fine with larger 3D models. There was also no problems running Adobe Creative suite.
Although I would imagine the laptop would not be perfect for high end gaming due to the graphics card being fairly standard, but then again I would just buy a console or a desktop for the price difference anyway.
So in summary:
pro's:
-Excellent laptop for the price
-Excellent for everyday office use and good enough for 3D applications and ram intensive programs such as photoshop.
-Widescreen has heaps of screen real estate
-Media center capabilities and remote
-Decent battery life
-Looks damn good
con's:
-Have not tested with high end games, but most probably not suitable with no dedicated graphics memory
-Vista is a little slow on start up, but once you delete a few programs and clean it up, the laptop is a dream
Overall I would highly recommend this laptop for everyone, except maybe the hardcore gamer. But then again the hardcore gamer would not be looking at a laptop at this price, rather one that is a lot more expensive. I am a transport designer so have used a range of programs at home and at the office and the laptop has been reliable and a real pleasure to have.
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