Laptops Arena

The dv4t is one very special HP Pavilion notebook that deserves all our special attention. This unit came at a price of $1470 back in 2008 but the prices have dropped considerably since then so one quick look on the HP official website will tell you everything you need to know in terms of price.

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Let us take a look though the configuration of the unit reviewed. This HP Pavilion notebook came with a 2.8 GHZ Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 processor and 4 GB of RAM. So far, this combination seems perfectly capable of handling multitasking without any problems or slowing down the performance of the system. The graphics card is the nVidia GeForce 9200M GS with 256 MB of dedicated video memory. The total storage capacity of the hard drive is 320 GB. It also comes with a Blu-ray optical drive which is quite a pleasant surprise even if it should be a must for most multimedia laptops from the market.

The 14 inch display comes with a native resolution 1280 x 800 pixels which offers bright and sharp colors and an excellent overall image. The horizontal viewing angles are excellent and the levels of brightness and contrast are also above average. The keyboard is fully sized and it feels very pleasant to type on. There is not the slightest amount of flex registered in the keyboard area and the keys have great travel and good response.  It is about the same case with the touchpad which is also very responsive and there is a very little amount of lag registered. The surface of the touchpad is very glossy and this is going to be a burden to use until it collects some natural finger oils.



The selection of ports and features is important on any laptop and it is even more important on a multimedia laptop because it increases the amount of devices that can be attached to the unit. For 1 14 inch laptop, this HP Pavilion certainly manages to impress as it comes with no less than 3 USB ports, an eSATA and USB combo port, an Express Card slot, the Ethernet port, a 5-in-1 multi format card reader, an Expansion port, a VGA out, a HDMI port, a Kensington lock slot and the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. The combination between the HDMI port and the Blu-ray optical drive is certainly something we would love to see more often as we can now attach external HD TVs and enjoy HD movies on the Blu-ray drive right onto those beautiful plasma TVs.  As for the battery life, the unit manages to stay into the limits of the category average. The 6 cell battery will provide us with 3 hours and 25 minutes of laptop usage if we set the display brightness to 60% and activate the wireless card while we set the Windows power management on “power saver”. With a good selection of ports and good performance for quite an acceptable price, this notebook is definitely one of the best choices when it comes to small multimedia notebooks.

Out of all the HP Mini notebook reviews that we have read recently, the one that impressed us the most is the HP Mini 5102. From a starting price of $749, the price tag of this laptop has dropped all the way down to $399.

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Let us take a quick look through the specs and see just why this mini notebook is considered to be so popular. First of all, it runs on a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor and 1 GB of RAM. The total storage capacity of the unit is 160 GB and the graphics card is the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150. With this unit you will also receive a preinstalled version of the Windows 7 Starter operating system. The 10.1 inch display has a native resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The matter surface means we will never deals with annoying reflections. The horizontal viewing angles are ok compared to the vertical ones which were never our area of focus anyway.

The unit comes with a built in speakers which is quite ok for a 10 inch mini laptop. Even when you turn the volume up to the maximum level, there are no sound distortions. However, it is difficult to really enjoy a movie unless your ears are close to the mini notebook so a good set of headphones or external speakers are always welcome. The keyboard is 95% fully sized and it is also spill resistant which is good news for people that generally enjoy their coffee in front of the computer. The chiclet style keyboard is very similar to the one found on the Apple MacBook and it feels very comfortable to use it. It may be a bit odd for those that never typed on such a keyboard before because of the spacing between the keys. However, the keys offer positive feedback once you get used to typing on them. There is no flex registered in the keyboard area. The touchpad also bring good news. It is very responsive and if generally netbook touchpads are a real pain due to their reduced size, this one is a pleasure to use. The glossy surface is very smooth and feels pleasant on your fingertips. The left and right mouse buttons are easy to press even when you use your thumbs.



Let us see what there is to report about the selection of ports and features on this unit. The unit comes with 3 USB ports, one Ethernet port, one security lock slot, a VGA out, a 4-in-1 media card reader and headphones out plus a microphone in jack. As for the battery life, all the HP Mini notebook reviews about the HP Mini 5102 have nothing but good thing to say. With the display brightness set to 70% and the wireless card activated you will get about 8 hours and 43 minutes which is great performance and just what you would expect to get from an ultra portable mini laptop. We have to hand it to HP for finally giving us a product that we like.

The HP G60t series notebook is our main focus for this article. This is because the HP G60t series notebook could be a great laptop for a lot of occasions since the starting price of the unit is as low as $530. Let us see if this 16 inch beauty has something to offer that could catch out attention. First of all, it does just that though the low price as budgets laptop are something more and more people are looking to buy.

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When it comes to looks, the G60t series follows the same pattern of design as the other HP Pavilion laptops. It comes with a glossy black lid and a silver glossy interior.  It looks elegant and beautiful, just like most HP Pavilion models do. This unit comes with a 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium T4200 processor and 4 GB of RAM. Even if the processor is not the fastest one around, the RAM is sufficient for running multiple applications at the same time at good speed without stressing the laptop too much. The graphics card is the integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD. The total storage capacity of the hard drive is 160 GB. If you wish to have a more powerful unit, you could go with the 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the 500 GB hard drive and even the nVidia GeForce 9200 graphics card.

The selection of ports and connections is always important on a 16 inch laptop which could make a good desktop replacement. The HP G60t series notebook comes with 3 USB ports, an Express Card slot, a VGA out, an Ethernet port, a HDMI out, a multi format digital media card reader, a headphone plus a microphone jack.  Some people may miss the FireWire port but I find the included HDMI port a very nice feature. Aside from the keyboard, we also have a dedicated numerical pad which is going to be a relief for people that have to work with spreadsheet and other type of data entry. An external mouse could turn out to be a better idea than to use the integrated touchpad. Not that the touchpad is bad, it’s just that the left and right touchpad buttons may not have the travel and response that you would expect.



The 16 inch display comes with a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels HD. The colors are vibrating and beautiful and both the brightness and the contrast levels are more than acceptable. The glossy display tends to reflect the objects in front of it when you are in a powerfully lit environment. When it comes to battery life, we did not set our expectation to high as we never do when it comes to desktop replacements. With the 6 cell battery you could get about 2 hours and 30 minutes of battery life while doing some word processing in the Windows Vista “power saver” power management profile. If you wish to have an extended battery life, you could choose the 12 cell battery which will surely improve the period for which you laptop could stay up and running.

The HP Pavilion dv7-1260us notebook was one of the laptop with which HP has stuck gold. It has been the best selling notebook on Amazon for quite a few months and users simply loved it: from the looks and way down to the price and the performance. But what is it exactly that made this notebook so cool and popular among laptop users worldwide?

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With a 17 inch display, we can understand that it was a very popular desktop replacement. The unit was based on a 2.2 GHz AMD Turion X2 RM-74 dual core processor and on 4 GB of RAM. It comes with other super features like and included Blu-ray optical drive and a preinstalled version of the Windows Vista Premium operating system. This means that multitasking would never be a problem due to the good combination of processor and RAM which can run multiple applications without slowing the overall speed and performance of the unit. Since we have an integrated Blu-ray optical drive, we can enjoy HD movies on the beautiful 17 inch display which uses the HP BrightView technology; the one that makes color look sharper and more vibrating. It is without a doubt that the HP Pavilion dv7-1260us notebook can handle entertainment and it does it very well.

The unit comes with those HP QuickPlay multimedia buttons which we have grown to love so much. Just by taking a first look at this laptop you can tell that it is original and elegant since it uses that bronze color which is not commonly seen on other laptop models. We can definitely say that this laptop manages to stand out from the crown and attract your look inside any laptop store. The display offers a native resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels and if you find that this is not enough for you to enjoy high definition movies, you can always take advantage of the HDMI port and attach an external HD TV which will provide you with the ultimate movie watching experience.



For a price of $588 you can never say that this laptop is too expensive and you can’t afford it. In fact, it is quite cheap is we consider that it comes with a lot of cool features. The unit also has an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics card which can handle up to 1918 MB of video memory. Due to the 4 GB of RAM, the unit can perfectly run the 64 bit version of the Windows Vista Home Premium but I think it could also handle a 64 bit version of the brand new Windows 7 operating system. Aside from the regular USB ports, this unit also hosts an Ethernet port, a docking station connector, a VGA out, a HDMI port, an infrared receiver, a modem port and the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. You have to admit that there is quite a lot of performance is a unit which you can buy for less than $1000. The HP Pavilion dv7-1260us notebook may just be your next choice when you are on the market looking for a good desktop replacement.

HP touchscreen notebooks (and all touchscreen notebooks from different manufacturers) are my favorite type of laptops. Why you ask? Well, it’s mainly because they offer 2 different possibilities for you to take notes: you can either type on them just like you do on any other kind of laptop or you can rotate the display into tablet mode and, using the included stylus pen, you can simply write on the display and take notes just like you would on a regular piece of paper using a regular pen.

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Two of the best examples of HP touchscreen notebooks are the TouchSmart tx2z and the TouchSmart tm2t. The TouchSmart tx2z is a 12 inch laptop that offers both performance and portability for the price of $1733. This beautiful tablet notebook comes with a 2.4 GHz AMD Turion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile Processor ZM-86 and 4 GB of RAM. The graphics card is an ATI Radeon HD 3200 with 64 MB of video memory. The total storage capacity of the hard disk is 400 GB which is more than enough for a 12 inch laptop. In fact, I think that the specs inside this tablet PC can justify the price which is considered too high by many people. Compared to other tablet PCs, the TouchSmart tx2z comes with a DVD burner that uses the LightScribe technology on a market where we often see that small notebooks lack an optical drive. Other features of this tablet notebook are the integrated webcam and the fingerprint reader.  The HP TouchSmart tx2z is pretty good when it comes to the selection of ports and features as well. The unit hosts 3 USB ports, one Express Card slot, an Expansion port for connecting a docking station, an Ethernet port, a modem port, a VGA out, a Kensington lock slot, a 5-in-1 multi format card reader and two headphones out plus one microphone in jack. Since this tablet PC is a symbol of portability, the battery life should be good enough to meet our expectations. If you turn the screen brightness to the maximum level and set the Windows power management profile to “High performance”, this laptop will provide about 2 hours of battery life. However, should you choose to save power by reducing the brightness of the display and setting the power management profile to “power saver”, you could get about 5 hours of battery life.

The HP TouchSmart tm2t comes with a 1.3 GHz CULV Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300. The standard configuration comes with 4 GB of DDR3 RAM which is superior to the DDR2 found in the model above. The unit also comes with 320 GB of free disk space, an integrated webcam and the following ports and connections: 3 USB ports, one HDMI port, a VGA out, an Ethernet port, a 5-in-1 media card reader and the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. The presence of the HDMI port is quite a nice surprise and none of us expected to find it on a 12 inch laptop. The truth is, both of these models are probably the best HP touchscreen notebooks on the market at the moment.