- Jul 15, 2003
- 80,287
- 17,080
- 136
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0076E9CL6
I am not a laptop guru by any means, currently have an Acer XP Netbook and I like it fine but needed a slightly larger screen (you cant do any real work on a netbook). In the past I used massive Prostars (Sager) in lieu of a desktop, and I hated doing that. Normally stay away from laptops.
- HARDWARE -
Body is sleek and slim but doesnt feel like the same build quality as other HP's I've seen in the stores. Battery doesnt stick out of the body which I love but it also has a low capacity. In standby a fully charged unit died overnight. That is unacceptable. Under normal use with an Unplugged profile active I only got about 3 hours use of the computer. That too isnt really good for something I'd like to take to school and play with in between classes. The heat vent on the left side consumes most of the real estate. Only a full HDMI port and one USB. Right side has an SD/MMC slot, two USB, headphones and mic. Also a VGA port and ethernet. Because of the sleek rounded design there are no ports on the rear, nor buttons or switches on the front.
Screen is very nice, good color, fast and responsive (no ghosting during vids or games). However that doesnt matter. Despite the multiple claims of HD movie capability I found online and local videos to be unimpressive. SD Netflix stuttered and HD was unplayable. It froze at the first frame and just the audio played. This is on the same wifi connection that does just fine with HD on other computers in the house, including GoogleTV. Either the mobile Radeon 6320 isnt enough, or that crummy Atom-clone AMD processor is holding things back. It was fine for all desktop tasks however. Local HD and SD video fared only slightly better, and only with VLC, not Windows Media player. Gobs of RAM and hard drive though, so thats not an issue. Since I wont be installing high end games on it and only the basic productivity apps I could have gotten by with slightly less storage and been happy. As is the standard, no OS disc, just a recovery partition. Which means if your system ever gets seriously borked you need to send it in to HP. Usual flat keyboard, not nice to type on. For real work I'd prefer to plug this thing into a monitor and keyboard and mouse. Oh, and I hate the textured finger touchpad. Very annoying to use for longer than a minute.
There is no optical drive but I think its a testament to modern technology that you'd probably never want to use a disc. As slow as the video was you wont be watching DVD's, especially with the poor battery.
Never got to make use of the blue tooth. Theres plenty of lovely white lights all over the body. Much improved from red and blue. I like it. It didnt include a mouse or car charger.
Speakers were weak and tinny. I'd prefer headphones for music or movies.
- SOFTWARE -
Junkware - Of course it came with loads of crap, almost none of which impressed me. They do have a stripped down install of Office on it, and the first time you run them they offer to upgrade to student or full edition. Office apps loaded up and ran quickly. No waiting to get school work done.
Quick Web - Theres a shortcut button next to the power button to turn on Quick Web (if you are already in standby). Its trying to copy tablet and other mobile OS's by giving you a basic desktop with important info like weather, stocks, new emails and such. BUT, it needs a wifi connection to get all that stuff and wifi cant connect if password protected unless Windows itself is running. So its basically useless. When Windows is up and you hit the Quick Web button you just get a regular browser window. I suppose I could set it to iGoogle or something similar, for convenience.
All apps loaded quickly and ran well, but again any kind of video was unimpressive whether on VLC, Netflix or Youtube. Did not try Hulu or anything else.
The webcam was slow and choppy and heavily pixelated despite being supposedly HD. It did have decent color balance compared to other web cams and the included software offered plenty of uploading options. I have no idea if 3rd party software would improve the quality or frame rate.
- Final Thoughts -
It was advertised as an entertainment system but is too weak for real games or HD video. SD video performance is so mediocre its not worth wasting the short lived battery. For general use not requiring a large screen it works great. I'd be fine taking this to school and doing most Office work. And of course playing web games & checking email and such. As butt ugly as I am would not bother video conferencing unless it was a long lost friend I worried I might never see face to face again. Its a lousy camera.
Any questions?
I am not a laptop guru by any means, currently have an Acer XP Netbook and I like it fine but needed a slightly larger screen (you cant do any real work on a netbook). In the past I used massive Prostars (Sager) in lieu of a desktop, and I hated doing that. Normally stay away from laptops.
- HARDWARE -
Body is sleek and slim but doesnt feel like the same build quality as other HP's I've seen in the stores. Battery doesnt stick out of the body which I love but it also has a low capacity. In standby a fully charged unit died overnight. That is unacceptable. Under normal use with an Unplugged profile active I only got about 3 hours use of the computer. That too isnt really good for something I'd like to take to school and play with in between classes. The heat vent on the left side consumes most of the real estate. Only a full HDMI port and one USB. Right side has an SD/MMC slot, two USB, headphones and mic. Also a VGA port and ethernet. Because of the sleek rounded design there are no ports on the rear, nor buttons or switches on the front.
Screen is very nice, good color, fast and responsive (no ghosting during vids or games). However that doesnt matter. Despite the multiple claims of HD movie capability I found online and local videos to be unimpressive. SD Netflix stuttered and HD was unplayable. It froze at the first frame and just the audio played. This is on the same wifi connection that does just fine with HD on other computers in the house, including GoogleTV. Either the mobile Radeon 6320 isnt enough, or that crummy Atom-clone AMD processor is holding things back. It was fine for all desktop tasks however. Local HD and SD video fared only slightly better, and only with VLC, not Windows Media player. Gobs of RAM and hard drive though, so thats not an issue. Since I wont be installing high end games on it and only the basic productivity apps I could have gotten by with slightly less storage and been happy. As is the standard, no OS disc, just a recovery partition. Which means if your system ever gets seriously borked you need to send it in to HP. Usual flat keyboard, not nice to type on. For real work I'd prefer to plug this thing into a monitor and keyboard and mouse. Oh, and I hate the textured finger touchpad. Very annoying to use for longer than a minute.
There is no optical drive but I think its a testament to modern technology that you'd probably never want to use a disc. As slow as the video was you wont be watching DVD's, especially with the poor battery.
Never got to make use of the blue tooth. Theres plenty of lovely white lights all over the body. Much improved from red and blue. I like it. It didnt include a mouse or car charger.
Speakers were weak and tinny. I'd prefer headphones for music or movies.
- SOFTWARE -
Junkware - Of course it came with loads of crap, almost none of which impressed me. They do have a stripped down install of Office on it, and the first time you run them they offer to upgrade to student or full edition. Office apps loaded up and ran quickly. No waiting to get school work done.
Quick Web - Theres a shortcut button next to the power button to turn on Quick Web (if you are already in standby). Its trying to copy tablet and other mobile OS's by giving you a basic desktop with important info like weather, stocks, new emails and such. BUT, it needs a wifi connection to get all that stuff and wifi cant connect if password protected unless Windows itself is running. So its basically useless. When Windows is up and you hit the Quick Web button you just get a regular browser window. I suppose I could set it to iGoogle or something similar, for convenience.
All apps loaded quickly and ran well, but again any kind of video was unimpressive whether on VLC, Netflix or Youtube. Did not try Hulu or anything else.
The webcam was slow and choppy and heavily pixelated despite being supposedly HD. It did have decent color balance compared to other web cams and the included software offered plenty of uploading options. I have no idea if 3rd party software would improve the quality or frame rate.
- Final Thoughts -
It was advertised as an entertainment system but is too weak for real games or HD video. SD video performance is so mediocre its not worth wasting the short lived battery. For general use not requiring a large screen it works great. I'd be fine taking this to school and doing most Office work. And of course playing web games & checking email and such. As butt ugly as I am would not bother video conferencing unless it was a long lost friend I worried I might never see face to face again. Its a lousy camera.
Any questions?
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