The best laptop in the whole wide world!

Author's Rating:

Pros: Perfect_size_13x15, Fabulous screen, great performance, DVD writer, Quickplay_(turn_on_DVD_&_CD_without_turning_on_Windows!), Remote_ control, wireless connectivity, full_size_keyboard, awesome_battery_life

Cons: Doesn't have a pointing device between the keyboard (as do some laptops)

The Bottom Line: 
There isn't a better all-purpose laptop out there. feature-set, performance and battery life are unparalleled - cannot go wrong with this.

Author's Review
Hi folks. You're probably out there looking for a laptop, have probably narrowed done your choices and this laptop made it on the list. Now you're this close to a decision and wondering whether or not you should get this one.

I was in your shoes 3 weeks ago - boy, I did my homework and after looking at umpteen laptops from half a dozen companies narrowed it down to a few including this one. Then I went to Best Buy and actually checked it out in person to make sure I was a 100% convinced that this was "the" laptop I wanted.

This laptop impressed me at first sight. For starters, the Ultra-brite and wide screen (admirably crisp, and bright) was so cool that it was almost like love at first sight. Then, there's the usual specs - 60GB, 512MB RAM, 6-in-1 card reader etc ... then you add the DVD R/W drive to it and how cool it looks and how well it performs and it was really hard for me to resist the urge to walk out from that store without buying it :-)

So you say, okay, that's kind of cool but is that it? You know, that where this laptop begins to set itself to be a class apart - I can watch DVDs, listen to MP3s and CDs all WITHOUT switching on Windows - you know how cool that is - press a button and the DVD player comes on, press a button and the CD player comes on! Feeling lazy to gt up from your bed, no worries - this laptop comes with a way cool REMOTE CONTROL that I can use from my bed to turn on and control the DVD player and the CD/MP3 player - I mean, how much more could you want? Not to mention that its got not one but two earphone jacks so my sister and I both watch a movie on the plane without bothering anyone and guess what, you can individually control the volume on each headset - and when you're not using the remote control, it neatly tucks into the PC card slot - now that's smart :-)

Aesthetically speaking, it look really classy (silver chasis), and from a performance perspective, it delivers stellar performance - from raw computing (I program) to watching DVDs to listening to music - I found out for myself that the Harman Kardon stereo speakers were no ordinary speakers (you'll find that out yourself the first time you hear a song play on this beauty of a machine)

Then there are other cool features like auto-scroll on the mouse (reading a long web page or document, you can just scroll down without having to navigate to the side bar!), illuminated buttons for using the DVD player at night, the list goes on ...

Now you may think I'm biased but seriously there is nothing about that I don't like. Hats off to HP for designing such a cool notebook! And don't take my word for it - just visit any major laptop seller close to your home and check it out for yourself!

Did I mention battery life :-) you know, I had a Toshiba Tecra previoulsy and it would die out on me in a matter of minutes. I ran a full DVD movie on this machine the other day - I was shocked myself - so I charged it again and I re-ran it and it played through the whole movie - after owning a Tecra, this was like unbelievable!

And it comes pre-loaded with a good choice of software including DVD burning and image-enhancement, MS Money and Works (I belive you can upgrade to Office) making software. Burning my first movie was a snap! Put it in, turn on software, follow simple instructions and that's it!

Then there's support - in addition to the Operating system CD, they actually shipped another CD with every single piece of driver and other utilities the machine comes pre-installed wth, in case you ever need it! And they also ship along CDs for all the software that the laptop comes with.

In all seriousness, this laptop is a class apart, and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone looking for a laptop for just about anything you may need a laptop for - surfing the web (oh I haven't covered the inbuilt wireless adapter, bluetooth etc.), doing email and word-processing, playing games, watching DVDs, listening to music, transferring pictures and editing them if needed, doing homework, taxes, burning music and DVDs, taking it along on a flight or in the car with two people being bale to enjoy the DVD/music without bothering others, working on it for hours before the batery needs a re-charge, one button mute, DVD on-off, music on-off, full size keyboard, the list goes on and on ...

... I love it, I love it, I love it sooo much!!!

Believe you me, you couldn't find a classier, well-thought of laptop that fulfills all of your needs and delights you in every way, than this one! And for this price, its so moderately priced!

Now you're probably thinking - hmm "if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is" - that's precisely why I'm saying that don;t take my word for it if you don't want to - go check it out for your self at any place that sells laptops (circuit city, BestBuy, CompUSA, ... ) - buy it only after YOU'RE convinced that its what you want - I spent an hour writing this review to share my take on it and help you make a decision because I know how hard it was for me.

PS: Some lessons I learnt:

1. If you're thinking of installing additional software on it, make sure that you determine the minimum OS requirements for that software - in my case, I needed to install Microsoft Virtual PC and I found out later that Virtual PC required Windows XP Professional - so you may want to check that before you place an order.

2. If you ever need to re-build the machine for whatever reason to install Quickplay, make sure that you leave a least 204MB space for Quickplay AND make sure its set to be a PRIMARY partition type and not and extended partition type. It took me a while to figure that out :-(

3. Finally, if you do order the 12-inch lithium ion extra battery, just know that its not the same size as the standard 6-inch (obviously) so it kind of juts out (slanted though so it's cool) and takes half-an-inch or so under the laptop in effect not making the base completely horizontal - the flip side to it is that its kind of like a feature in that it ends up putting the laptop on an approx 7% incline thereby providing an inclined keyboard, which is like a feature in most keyboards (which come with tabs you can pull out to make them inclined)

4. Once you do get it, enjoy it, I compared it with the Sony offerings and others - went to Best Buy 5 times to convince myself and I'm so happy with this new found love now!

5. Oh and hey, I found the ideal bag for this laptop too - went to the GAP the other day and they had this cool $12 bag with enough padded prtioection and one that fit so snugly that it almot seemed like it was tailored for this machine! So if you happen to go to the mall, check out GAP - they only have few quantities though :-)