This laptop is a good alternative to a netbook, if you were thinking about getting a netbook, get this one instead. It has a big screen to work with, and has a well-sized keyboard. The keyboard buttons are not crammed together since they forego the numeric keypad. I personally don't use Windows, and i took a chance and was able to easily install Debian Squeeze (6.0). The laptop comes with the latest chipset from Realtech (the RT8188) and if you use any type of Linux, you can compile the drivers easily from the source (provided by RealTech). If you use the preinstalled Windows 7, then don't worry about this, it'll work out of the box. The only complaint I have is that the trackpad buttons (left click, right click) have a cheap feel. This isn't a dealbreaker by any means.Great keyboard, good-sized screen, works great with Windows or Linux.
The battery lasts around i'd say 2.5, maybe up to 3 hours. I think it was advertised as more, but I think manufacturers on the whole tend to exaggerate (perhaps they calculate based around just watching the BIOS config screen till it dies instead of real-world use).
I saw the HP Pavilion 2000-219DX and tested the keyboard and immediately fell in love. HP did a great job here. The keyboard and mouse pad are centered and it just feels perfect when typing. I'm a writer so it's very important to have a keyboard that works and this one is one of the best I've used.
The other big benefit of this laptop is that it's extremely quiet. I detect very little, if any fan noise. I don't know what they've done with this one, but the battery life is nothing short of amazing. I unplugged it the other day and worked on battery power all day. Granted I was only doing word processing and some web browsing, but battery life puts this laptop, with its power, 15-inch screen and onboard large 320GB hard drive, on par with netbooks for usability away from a power source. Again well done HP!
The only things I'm not entirely impressed with are the screen, it's average; it's processing speed, when working on big photo or video files it leaves something to be desired. I'm still using the stock 3GB of RAM. It should perform better with a RAM upgrade; also the right side placement of the power cord and two of its three USB slots. When will laptop makers realize that a lot of people use and external mouse and don't want wires coming out of the right side of the machine to interfere with mouse movement? Fortunately there is a USB port on the left side too, so it's not a major issue. One other minor complaint is the onboard mouse pad. Unlike the Toshiba's I've used, it doesn't have a scroll function on the right side of the pad. I miss that.
Those very minor complaints are the only things that keep me from giving this otherwise excellent machine five stars.
Overall though this laptop is an exceptional value, with its top-of-the-line keyboard and battery life. Stick in some additional RAM and you'll be ready to do about anything on this that you could with a desktop.
Highly recommended.
UPDATE:
After buying additional RAM (now 6GB total) and working with this computer for a couple of months, I want to report that it is quite slow when working with large photo files, or any other type of large amounts of data that require a lot of processing speed. After running Windows 7 Performance Tests it turns out the AMD processor in this computer is the weak link. The processor scored only a 3.8 (out of a possible 7.9).
So scratch wheat I said about putting additional RAM to make this computer a fast performer. Processor speed is important. With its slower processor the laptop is limited in terms of doing photo or video editing.Best laptop keyboard I've ever used. Chiclet keys of the current and 1st-gen MacBooks don't compare. The 13" Macbook Pro with the 320M, similarly arranged in discrete islands of individual soft-lettery, does not promote long-term typing with the unforgiving aluminum surface. This 2000 219dx by HP, at the 15" size-form, delights in its tactile rest.
I've also tried the chiclet-style keyboard of the HP dv7-4273us; comparably, the 2000-219dx keyboard is superior. You may find the "give" that is, the flex in the latter a little disconcerting, but it certainly confers a fast-typist certitude of responsiveness. It takes a single design team at a huge corporation to rail against the chic-boutique and this laptop does it.
Congratulations to the hardware designer(s) at HP who stuck to your guns and manufactured this beauty. I would buy five of these for the rest of my life. One would be sent to the computer museum as a reference model of superior scissor-switching.
I've never used the Thinkpad. But if you are a zealot for mobile keyboards, thinking you'd always have to use an external at home, dimly forlorn at the current, fallow fashion of finger finagling, you'd be hard-pressed not to try this trip fantastic.
Walk in to your local Best Buy and try it.
As for everything else, this laptop has been known to work with Ubuntu, and a previous reviewer said it works with Debian. So I'm pretty good to go with LFS.
Update 10/18/2011: Everything works in Ubuntu 11.10. Proprietary graphics, Skype webcam/mic, suspend/hibernate, wireless. Keyboard continues to amaze.
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