I purchased the HP dv6 7134nr a few days ago. I will be a freshman in college next year and have enjoyed editing YouTube videos and that sort of thing for several years on my desktop here at home. Now that I'll be several hours away, I needed a laptop that would allow me to continue with my video editing while still being fairly inexpensive.
I actually bought this laptop with a $150 rebate (making it $750) at a local store (not Amazon). For that price, I couldn't find a laptop to beat this one. Even at the current $830 Amazon price, it's unbelievable that this thing has an i7 processor, 8 GB of RAM, three USB 3.0 ports, AND an HDMI port! I bought the laptop based mainly on these features. While a 750 GB hard drive seems small compared to the 1 or 1.5 TB hard drives many higher-level laptops come with these days, I didn't really care about hard drive size because I'll continue to use the 2 TB external drive I had continually connected with my old desktop (also eliminates the need to spend hours waiting for files to transfer over!).
There are a few minor cons I've found with the laptop since I've gotten it. For one thing, the 750 GB hard drive seems small compared to the 1 or 1.5 TB hard drives many higher-level laptops come with these days. However, I didn't really care about hard drive size because I'll continue to use the 2 TB external drive I had continually connected with my old desktop (also eliminates the need to spend hours waiting for files to transfer over!). Therefore, this doesn't really affect my rating.
When I got it, the display seemed really off compared to the monitor on my desktop. Seeing as I do a fair bit of color-correcting with my video editing, I need a display that shows everything exactly right, or the world will see my videos differently than I will (in a bad way, more likely than not). There is NOT a way to adjust the contrast via the keyboard or any function keys. You have to go into the Control Panel and find "Intel(R) Graphics and Media". Once there, I had full control of the display brightness, contrast, gamma, hue, and saturation. I was able to fairly successfully calibrate my monitor, so that is no longer an issue (just a bit of an annoyance at first).
The speakers aren't great on this they're Beats Audio, so the bass is really heavy, to the point of distortion on some audio. I plan on using headphones or buy some external speakers soon to eliminate this problem.
One big thing this computer lacks is the ability to tell if Num Lock is on. There's a very nice little bluish LED on the corner of the Caps Lock button, but the Num Lock lacks this feature. Even the Wifi on/off function button has an LED that changes from blue to red if Wifi is turned off. Because of this, I never know if I'm about to hit "7" or "Home". This has already tripped me up several times in the few days I've had this laptop. Needless to say, it is nice to have a full num pad, but I'd like to know if Num Lock is on. There's also not a "Scroll Lock" button, but I don't know that this is really even used anymore, but thought it was worth noting here.
The tracking pad does have a handy spot in the top left you can double-tap to disable/enable it (a red light comes on when it's off...still no light or anything for Num Lock!) which will be very useful once I get an external mouse to use with it. It claims to have multi-touch capabilities, which it does...to a certain degree. I've accidentally pinched in and out (zooming in and out a web page) more often than I've meant to. In fact, only once have I actually intended to pinch. It's a feature I feel this laptop would be better without. It's more of a nuisance than a nice feature. The tracking pad also lacks any form of a scrollbar you can't drag your finger down the right side and expect the page you're viewing to scroll down. This is really annoying for me, as I've been used to having that on previous laptops I've used.
This laptop does come with a ton of pre-installed software from HP (most of which I've taken off already) that clutters up the Start Menu, taskbar, and desktop. It's just another little nuisance that can be fixed within the first few hours of owning the laptop.
Now, I know I've listed a bunch of cons here, but they're all just little things (most of which can be easily fixed or don't bother me). This is a very nice laptop that I will get great usage out of. I just wanted to post a few things here that would have been nice to know before I bought it. In my opinion, despite this little annoyances, this is still a 5-star laptop, especially for what I'll be using it for. The battery lasts more than 4 hours and charges fairly quickly, it has a fast processor and a decent-sized screen. I would highly recommend this to anyone in need of a laptop that requires high performance (i.e., rendering videos, etc.). If you just want a laptop for word processing, surfing the web, PowerPoint presentations, etc., go out and get a cheaper computer with an i3 processor.
There is a lot of marketing hype around laptop and tablet features these days -but, here's the real deal! When I tested the HP Pavilion dv7t Quad Edition at a local big box store I was hooked from day one. Then I received it as a gift at the Amazon price and was still amazed at how much of a powerful and fast laptop this is for my business and entertainment needs. My goal was to have an affordable Windows laptop PC that was as useful, powerful and durable as a desktop. The HP dv7t knocked it totally out of the park on ALL the specs I checked and compared with other Windows and Apple laptop computers -and I still kept coming back to this model for its features. The Beats Audio system is even more of a knockout whether played through this laptop's front, back AND sub-woofer bottom-side speakers. This really mattered to me since I listen to a lot of CD and Internet radio Jazz, Hip-Hop and Classical music to clear my head during or after work. The video and sound is even more impressive when I hooked-it-up to the big screen TV from the the dv7t's HDMI connection. The large 17-inch adjustable screen is absolutely no strain on my eyes during long work periods, or viewing DVD and online movies on it. This tough 6-pounder that I sometimes carry from home is no more of a problem than carrying one textbook. Besides, I worry about how fragile many of the "thin is in" portable PCs being sold lately. I'm more secure with HP's light-weight metal and plastic construction of the dv7t for the long run. Because I am totally happy and very impressed with this laptop, I could say more about its other virtues. But, if you DO YOUR OWN checking and comparing of the line-by-line specs, you'll most likely do the right thing -at a good price. Moreover, I don't like having to spend (or overspend) money every 2 or 3 years for a new PC. This well-built HP dv7t is a genuine keeper for at least the next 5-plus years of my work and fun. As the classic Hip-Hop song says, "Don't believe the hype!" other PC makers are slinging about why you should spend your dollars on their PCs or tablets. With its WiFi, high-resolution screen, very fast 8GB RAM (be sure to get the Intel i7 chip), studio-quality sound, sharp screen camera, fingerprint security, internal help features, plus multiple USB-HDMI-SD-VGA and audio inputs -I now have my high-speed Internet, big hard drive, work tool, cable TV, bass-boosting stereo music, online telephone, and HD movie system in one box. HEAVEN!!! This HP workhorse affordably delivers the real deal 24/7 for work and play.
