HP DV5-1235dx Review – HP Pavilion Entertainment PC
Features:
The HP DV5-1235dx is an amazing laptop with plenty of power under the hood. The Intel Core™2 Duo Processor T6400 delivers everything you need to watch or edit DVDs, or even play 3D games. The laptop is equipped with 4Gig of RAM and is upgradable to 8G, which I haven’t seen in a laptop in this price range ($729 at Best Buy). Update: Best Buy dropped the price to $649 and raised it to $699…and dropped it again to $649.
The keyboard is excellent, and the 15.4″ screen is acceptable. What I don’t like about the screen is the somewhat low resolution of 1280 x 800 – but standard for a laptop in that class. HP calls the screen high dev, but don’t expect a picture like on your 1080p HDTV. A 1440 x 900 resolution would make this laptop a rockstar.
Other great features are:
- HDMI port: To connect a HighDev Monitor or TV
- eSata port: This is a new standard that HP wants to push. eSATA can transfer data (i.e. from an external hard drive) up to 3 times faster than a USB2.0 port. eSATA competes with the Firewire. Read more about eSATA here.
- 3 USB ports (actually 4 ports, but the 4th is shared with the eSata port)
- Webcam: Video Size: 640 x 480. Not suitable for shooting Hollywood pictures, but better than nothing. By the way, to start the webcam, go to START>All Programs>HP>HP MediaSmart>HP MediaSmart Webcam.
- 320GB harddrive. Nice size, about 13GB are already gone for the recovery feature, and after MS Office you have abut 210GB left.
- The laptop comes with a tiny remote control (stored in the PCMCIA slot) that makes the laptop an Entertainment Notebook PC; nice to have but I am not sure if I will ever use it.
MISSING Features
- Firewire
- Wireless N
- Bluetooth. However, you can upgrade your computer to Bluetooth for about $19 with a USB Bluetooth adapter from Newegg.com or from Walmart.
Battery surprise
Before you buy this laptop, make sure to let the sales person at Best Buy show you the laptop with the battery inserted (Best Buy removes all batteries from the display). This monster of a battery might be the deal breaker: It lifts the computer about 1 inch in the back, and you really need to get used to it. I personally love it since it makes it easier to type, keeps the processor cool and lasts for abut 4.5 hours. But there are plenty of reviewers at the Best Buy website that absolutely hate the battery!!!
Altec Lansing Speakers
The laptop features Altec Lansing stereo speakers with excellent sound quality; but in order to use the full potential of the speakers you first need to download the IDT HD sound driver from the HP support site, (unfortunately not preinstalled). Before I installed the driver the volume was so low that I thought my speakers a defective.
Here is the driver you need: IDT High-Definition Audio Codec driver
Microsoft Office 2007
I noticed that Excel is pretty slow with extreme calculations like “goal seek”. I am not sure if this is due to the processor or Windows Vista, which generally is pretty slow compared to XP.
Windows Vista 64Bit Compatibility
The DV5-1235dx has Vista 64bit installed, which concerned me a bit because of possible compatibility issues with software I used on my XP desktop. So far I haven’t had any issues, everything runs smoothly: Office 2003 (version 11), Gimp 2.6, Inkscape 0.46, etc.
Conclusion:
Great looking budget laptop with a powerful processor and lots of features. If you can get used to the huge battery, you will absolutely love it.
Links:
- CNET Review of the HP Pavilion DV5-1235dx
- HP Support: Downloads and Drivers
- Best Buy: Price and customer reviews
Windows Experience Index for the HP DV5-1235dx:
HP DV5 1235dx Specs
| Product Height | 1.7" |
|---|---|
| Product Width | 14.1" |
| Product Weight | 5.9 lbs. |
| Product Depth | 10.2" |
| Processor | Processor Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 / 2 GHz Data bus speed 800 MHz Cache Memory |
| Display | 15.4"WXGA high-definition widescreen with BrightView technology (1280 x 800) |
| Screen Size | 15.4" |
| System Bus | 800MHz |
| Cache Memory | 2MB on die Level 2 |
| System Memory (RAM) | Installed Size 4 GB / 8 GB (max) Technology DDR II SDRAM Storage Controller |
| Hard Drive Type | 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm) |
| Optical Drive | 8x Double-layer DVD-RW/CD-RW |
| Direct-Disc Labeling | Lightscribe |
| Digital Media Reader or Slots | Yes, digital media card reader |
| Graphics | Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD. |
| Video Memory | Up to 1759MB total available |
| Built-in Webcam | Yes |
| Networking | Built-in 10/100Base-T Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector) |
| Wireless Networking | Wireless-B+G |
| Bluetooth | No |
| S-Video Outputs | None |
| Additional Audio/Video Connectors | 1 HDMI |
| Audio | SRS Premium Sound. Built-in Altec Lansing speakers |
| PCMCIA Slots | 1 ExpressCard/34/54 |
| USB 2.0 Ports | 4 |
| IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports | None |
| Pointing Device | Touchpad |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1 |
| Included Software | HP MediaSmart; Microsoft Works; muvee Reveal; Cyberlink DVD Suite; Adobe Acrobat Reader |
| Included Accessories | HP mobile remote |
Gateway-Laptop MD2614u Review: Powerful But Far From Perfect
January 13, 2009 by eurojoe
Filed under Featured, German TV/DVD, News
Gateway MD 2614u $549 Best Buy
Features
The Gateway-Laptop (MD2614u) with AMD Turion X2 Dual Core is a Laptop for people with a small budget: $549 at Best Buy. It has some features that not every Entry-Level laptop can offer: 15.6 “True 16:9″ (1366×768) format, which lets you watch movies without the black bars on the top/bottom of the screen. If you are planning on using this laptop as an entertainment device you will love this format, however since your screen is now wider but shorter, web-browsing will consist of more scrolling. But Gateway has a solution for this: Vertical Scroll, which is on the right side of your Touchpad. Just move your finger up to scroll up, and down to scroll down.
Other features are the HDMI port, which lets you connect your laptop to your HDTV or newer monitors, the built in Webcam (1.3 megapixel), or the ATI graphics card which has 256MB of dedicated RAM.
Windows Vista 64bit
The AMD Turion X2 Dual Core 64 processor (compare to the Intel Core 2 Duo) is fast but doesn’t drain your battery too fast. An interesting fact is that the MD2614u runs Vista 64 but only has 3G of RAM (upgradable to 4G). Windows Vista 32bit only supports up to 3G of RAM, but the 64bit version supports 3G and more.
Also, the sales guy told me that MS Office 2003 does not work on Vista 64, which is incorrect. Office 2003 (x11) is supported. Please Best Buy, train your sales people – or go back to the commissions- based sales system. Check the Microsoft Vista Compatibility Website to check if your applications are supported.
Drawbacks
Here are some things that are not that great: It’s the keyboard, stupid. I just can’t get used to the keyboard; in order to give the laptop a modern and hip look, Gateway organized the keyboard, so that it fits exacltly into a rectangle shape. But the designers forgot to think about ergonomics. I have a hard time hitting the correct letter in the row where the letters QWERTY are located. Misspelled words are the norm. And the clicking sound of the keys is annoying.
The finish around the keyboard is glossy and you will see every finger print. The illuminated media buttons are confusing, I haven’t figured out how to use the volume button. With 7.1lbs this laptop is not really a laptop anymore, rather a desktop replacement.
Conclusion
Just by looking at the price and the specs (see below), the MD2614u seems to be a winner. But the unusual keyboard is a factor that should not be overlooked. It’s like buying a nice looking car with a powerful engine that constantly steers to the right.
After owning this laptop for about two weeks, I returned it to Best Buy, spend $200 more and own now an amazing laptop with a great keyboard. See my review for the HP DV5-1235dx
Related Links:
Gateway MD2614u
| Laptop Model | Gateway® MD2614u |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Genuine Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit) with SP11 |
| Processor | AMD Turion X2 Mobile Dual-Core Processor RM-72 (2.1GHz, 512KB x 2 L2 Cache, HyperTransport� technology @ up to 1600MHz) |
| Hard Drive | 250GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive4 |
| Memory | 3072MB 667MHz DDR2 Memory |
| Wireless Network | 802.11b/g/Draft-N Wireless LAN |
| Application Software | Microsoft Works 9.0, Microsoft Money Essentials & Microsoft� Office Home and Student 2007 (60-day complimentary trial period)3 |
| Chassis | Chassis with ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics with up to 1919MB of HyperMemory� and AMD M780G Chipset |
| Digital Media Software | Microsoft Windows Media Player 11, Cyberlink Power2 Go�, & Cyberlink� LabelPrint� |
| Dimensions (Box) | 13" (H) x 17" (W) x 6" (D) or 330mm (H) x 431.8mm (W) x 152mm (D) |
| Dimensions (System) | 1.3"-1.70" (H) x 15.2" (W) x 10.4" (D) or 32.9-44.3mm (H) x 387.2mm (W) x 264.6mm (D) |
| Display | 15.6" High-Definition Widescreen WXGA Ultrabright Display (1366 x 768) |
| Expansion Slots | ExpressCard Type 54 |
| External Ports | (4) USB 2.0, VGA Connector, v1.3 HDMI Connector |
| Keyboard and Mouse | Full-Size Keyboard, Synaptics Touchpad with Vertical Scroll |
| Media Card Reader | 5-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader (Memory Stick, Memory Stick� Pro, Multi Media Card, Secure Digital, xD-Picture Card) |
| Modem | 56K ITU V.92 ready Fax/Modem (RJ-11 port) |
| Multimedia Buttons | Illuminated Multimedia Touch Controls |
| Network | 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port) |
| Optical Drive | 8x Multi-Format Dual Layer DVDRW and DVD-RAM featuring Labelflash� Technology6 |
| Security Software | Symantec Norton 360 2008 (60-day trial)5 |
| Weights | 7.1 lbs. (3.2 kg) system unit only |
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