I bought this laptop several weeks ago, right after it came out on the market, as a replacement for my old, obsolete Lenovo Thinkpad R61e (and as a backup for one of my desktop computers that, at nearly 7 years, is really showing its age). I was attracted by the balance of price and features, and so far I haven't regretted this purchase for a single moment (though I did get a wistful moment when I saw a similar HP model at a local computer shop that had a Blu-Ray drive :) )!The g7-1365dx is one of HP's latest entrants in its highly successful Pavilion series of notebook/laptop PC's, with a slightly less capable twin in the g7-1355dx model which came out about a week after this model did (the only difference is that the 1355dx has a 500GB hard drive as opposed to the 1365dx's 640GB hard drive). With a quad-core AMD A603420M CPU, Radeon HD 6520G graphics, 640GB hard drive, 17.3" display (bigger across than some desktop LCD monitors!) and 4GB of DDR3 memory installed, we have here a suite of features that's comparable or superior to a great many more expensive laptops, so much so that one hesitates to call this machine a "budget" laptop for fear of unjustly labeling it a cheap or corner-cutting machine, neither of which it manifestly is.
I strongly recommend adding another 4GB of RAM to this computer, a cheap upgrade which I performed within an hour of purchase. This simple upgrade will significantly boost the power and speed of a machine that is already highly capable. The Windows 7 Home Premium system starts up and shuts down quite speedily. The graphics unit is rated as "A6" by AMD, the second-highest rating on its scale, which means that this computer is at least theoretically capable of playing Blu-Ray discs with the appropriate hardware. You will need to buy an external Blu-Ray drive, however, and probably a HDMI cable to connect the drive to the available HDMI port (the computer also has a traditional monitor port for connection to an external monitor). The hard drive has more capacity than the internal hard drives on any of my other computers, but depending on how much data you have to store, you may want to purchase a compact external HD to take along. The machine is very elegant in design, with an attractive black/silver-pewter color scheme, and has a satisfyingly hefty, solid feel. While it weighs 6+ pounds, when stored in its laptop bag along with the peripherals I've purchased for it, the whole package actually seems to weigh less than my old Thinkpad!
Some users feel that the built-in speakers are a bit puny, but it's my experience that speakers on notebook PC's tend to be comparatively undersized/underpowered affairs due to the constraints of the design, so I'm not really bothered by that (plus which, since I'm hearing-impaired, the sound system is less important to me anyway than the graphics quality). And speaking of which, the LCD monitor delivers beautiful, crisp, clear pictures. Fans of cutting-edge FPS games might need to step down the graphics level to play their favorite games on this machine (notebook PC's, again, tend to have less powerful graphics than desktop PC's so are usually not the best options for playing highly graphics-intensive games in any case) but other genres of games (e.g., strategy games like the Civilization series) should play without any issues. I got Cyberlink PowerDVD, my preferred movie-playing software, installed it on this machine, and it works like a charm very important since playing video away from home is one of the more frequent uses to which I intend to put this machine. (At the time of this writing, I haven't experimented yet with the built-in webcam.) Take note, also, that the hard drive is actually _larger_ than its marketed size of 640GB; the usable partition shows up as 678GB in all reporting software, along with two smaller recovery partitions, totaling some 700GB (which makes me wonder if HP actually installed a 750GB HD in this model remember that usable formatted sizes on a hard drive are always smaller than the size on the label but decided to market it as a smaller one).
No computer is ever perfect, though, and I do have a few quibbles with it. The battery life is advertised as being "up to 5 hours, 30 minutes", but that's marketing talk; as it comes from the factory, battery life is probably going to be closer to 2 hours and you'll need to do some work with the power scheme to stretch out the battery (and be sure to buy a spare battery once they become available for this model). There are only 3 USB ports, a common limitation on laptops, but if you have several USB devices to run, you'll need to buy a USB port hub. The media card reader only accepts SD and MMC cards, so I had to buy a USB card reader that accepts xD picture cards (the type that goes with my camera). The arrow keys are fairly small, which can lead to some awkwardness with certain games and applications that require lots of arrow-key manipulation; a USB keypad with full-sized arrow keys might be in order here.
All things considered, this is probably the best, most powerful laptop PC I've ever owned, and right now it's the single most powerful PC I do own! I strongly recommend this machine to anyone who's looking for a notebook that delivers a sound balance of features, power and price.
EDIT: (February 25, 2012): Grab this machine while you can. It's *already* (!!!) being superseded by the dv7-6c95dx, whose main differences seem to be that the latter system boasts Beats Audio, a redesigned keyboard and 4G capability. However, the dv7-6c95dx appears to cost up to $350 more, which makes it a very poor cost-to-value choice for the relatively minor improvements. Also, watch for another model called the g7-1355dx, which is identical in all respects to the 1365dx except that the 1355dx carries a 500GB hard drive as opposed to the 640GB hard drive of this model (this is very likely due to the ongoing hard drive shortage which may have restricted supplies of the 640GB hard drive used in the 1365dx).
UPDATE (March 21, 2012): The hard drive advertised as being 640GB in this laptop is actually 750GB! I found this out this morning when I installed the PC analyzer program HWInfo64 onto my own machine (I recommend it, by the way). That explains why the primary partition is listed as 676GB, nearly 40GB more than the stated/marketed capacity of the HD in advertising, and why there are two additional smaller partitions available for recovery and maintenance. This is a GOOD thing it means that you're getting even more of a bargain when you buy this machine, because you're going to get a hard drive that's bigger than anything found on anything except high-end laptops. I have no idea why HP chose to advertise this drive as being so much smaller than its actual size; perhaps they were concerned that people might see the actual formatted size of the drive and, not being aware that formatted capacities of hard drives are always smaller than the unformatted capacity, complain mistakenly about malfunctioning parts or even false advertising.
So I decided to purchase the: HP Pavilion G7 1365DX.
How do I remember the name by heart? Naieve one you are, 'tis the fact that this computer is brand new off the lines, and has virtually no developer support for it as of yet. I've scoured thousands of Google pages looking for everything and anything about this laptop, but alas, to no avail.
I will give the Laptop a good year to mature, before I can port Mac OS and Linux onto the device.
My review:
-Stock: 7.2/10
-Upgraded: 8.6/10
Stock Hardware Review:
6 Hard Drive Speed
8 Performance
8 Battery Life
5 RAM Speed
9 Graphics
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36 / 5 = 7.2 Rating
Pros:
-At these speeds, the Laptop was quite fast. Blazing actually.
-Plenty of Hard drive room, very slow access speeds.
-RAM is sufficient for everyday users.
Cons:
-The multi-tasking just isn't as good with only the original 4GB of RAM. (This is especially true if you set Windows to utilize all four cores simultaneously.)
-Power users will notice slow RAM access speeds, and will want to upgrade to faster/larger sized RAM.
-Normal/Slow HDD read/write speeds will cause slow down on games, and higher Graphically-based programs or Processor heavy programs will feel that wait time.
After Upgraded RAM and HDD Review:
9 Hard Drive Speed (Increased to Caviar-Black 1.0TB
9 Performance
7 Battery Life
8 RAM Speed
9 Graphics
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42 / 5 = 8.4 Rating
Pros:
--The Laptop will set your house on fire by how Blazing fast it actually is.
-A Mushkin SSD sped Windows 7 up to Jesus speeds.
-RAM is sufficient for heavy multitaking, and RAM intensive programs.
Cons:
-Installation can be problematic for a novice user.
-Can be pricey for replacement parts.I bought this in early February. I spent $450 on it, which is a great bargain. I previously owned an HP dv5-1235dx for $679, and due to a few viruses, I got credit for a brand new laptop with warranty, and bought this one. This laptop is twice as good as that one, which was very strong for me and I loved it and still love it, and its $230 less. Part of that is that computers become more bargains as the years pass, and the same price gets you abetter laptop year after year.
The 640GB hard drive is more than enough for me. Currently I have 498 GB free, and roughly 120 used GB memory. When this computer was purchased, HP had put about 30GB on it of its own software and windows 7 and etc... What I do is download 20 movies, watch them, and erase. So I do not foresee myself every getting half of this Hard Drive used up. Even if your someone that stores lots of data, 640GD(roughly 600 able to use) is still plenty. The graphics card is said to be very good but not optimal. In my opinion from what I can tell, it is very strong and impressive. The visuals are as good and better than my last laptop, and barring HD TV blu-ray quality, this wil suffice for most users.
The 4 core processors allow very high multi-tasking. I have had about 6-8 programs in the foreground running, and probably 4 or 5 in the background running with VERY minimal slow-down effect.
The audio and speakers sound great and pretty powerful for tiny laptop speakers. The dvd-drive is great, the 3 USB ports are enough for me, the battery life tends to be about 3 to 3.5 hours on average battery power savings(50% screen brightness, etc..). The webcam is as good as any built-in webcam usually comes. It has 6months of internet security on it. The best buy warranty is $270 for 3 years of the full, "black tie", broken, damaged, water damage, vitrus, full warranty that covers literally anything at all.
The many HP programs include so many that I wont list them all, there are about 12 or more off the top of my head. Some are new that I have never seen and still exploring them. The 17.3 inch screen size is larger than my last 15.6 and the difference is visually much better. It technically is 1.7inches but it feels like 2" or more difference. I love it. I have downloaded 5 or 6 games that are racing, golf, etc and they all play fantastically. Graphics are great even when there is alot of action on-screen.
The mouse pad is my first of this kind. Instead of the smooth pad, its bumpy and rough in order to detect motion better. You can only tell this in person, so try it out when you are in-store. I love the design.
The hard drive acceleration allows the processer to speed up when necessary. When it's not using accelerated mode, the copmuter is fast enough. When it comes on, there are no issues that it can't handle, seemingly(of course the biggest games and movies and everything playing all at once would be tough, but for any standard use it is great. I have absolutely no regrets with this computer and I will enjoy having it for the full 3 years of the warranty. I love this computer so much. Im nota HUGE computer guy, but I love my computers if you know what I mean. I think this computer is A) reliable, B) powerful, C)smooth and sleek. If your budget is $500 or less, I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this. You can not be dissatisfied unless you expect $900 range while paying $500. Other than that, satisfied is what you wil be. Goodluck computer shoppers and I hope I madeyour decision easy..HP is a very reliable product and above all easily my favorite..I am very happy with this laptop. It runs quickly and smoothly. Downloading items from the internet sometimes takes a matter of seconds where with my last computer is took several minutes. The biggest problem I had was that this laptop is so big at 17.3" that I had a hard time finding a good computer bag that would fit it!This is my first HP and let me tell You I am very impressed with this performance. The Graphics are great. The speed is phenomenal, and just overall a great purchase. It was out of this computer, Samsung, or Toshiba. All had similar specs, but what sold me on this computer was better options for the price. I would recommend this computer to anyone.
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