HP Pavillion dv6t Quad Edition. After abortive attempt by HP to divest its PC business, and some past negative dealings with HP rebates, I decided to update my Toshiba i7-740QM to this HP i7-2760QM. So after research, I bought one of these to see if the 2nd Gen Intel i-series CPUs really were "better". Bought through HP for quite a bit more money in Nov. 2011. Specs were very good, but I upgraded (part of the reason it was more expensive) the 5400 rpm hard drive to a 7200 rpm. Though there was a delay at Customs in Singapore (didn't know they were made in China), and a 6-day delay at Customs in Memphis, I finally got this supposedly improved laptop. Strike "supposedly". It ran much cooler than the very good Toshi Satellite 665. Toshi has 8 Gb 1066 RAM, the HP has 8 Gb DDR3 1333 RAM. Same MS Ultimate OS. Same Office Home & Business 2010. Norton 360 v.5.0. Toshi has a good 500 Mb DDR3 nVidia 330, the HP has a (much) better 2 Gb ATI DDR5. Beats Audio is much better than the Toshi's "good" Harmon-Kardons, though I have yet to hear any laptop speakers get even close to external add-ons. Both have a 720p HD, which is quite adequate for non-gamer/non-tech graphics (HP with the good, additional Intel 3000 for routine graphics on the CPU). The Toshi has a multi-DVD, the HP a Blu-Ray ROM/multi-DVD. The Toshi has 3 USB 2.0 ports, the HP two 3.0 (with charging capability, and on my desktop, an added "card" 3.0 runs 3-1/2 to 4 times faster backups and file transfers to 3.0 external drives than the prior 2.0) and 2x2.0 (one 2.0/eSATA). The Toshi booted in (minutes:seconds) about 1:30, the HP in :45 with Norton 360, Adobe, Office, etc. Office, Adobe Photoshop Elements 10, and several other programs on the HP came up in just over 1/2 the time as in the Toshi. The Toshi's 12-cell battery would last about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. The HP's 9-cell ran for a bit over 4 hours. The Toshi's black textured plastic barely shows a fingerprint, the HP's dark umber shows them readily. Both keyboards are similar. I've worked with computers since 1983, though not a tech person, and have lots of experience as an "advanced" novice-level user. The decision to purchase this model HP has so far (2 months) been a very good one, and I was so pleased at the improvements, I'm ordering a new one, for less cost, through Amazon (even though the new models will be out in a couple of months with the new "third generation" i-series CPUs). I gave this (reviewed) one to my son (an IT professional), who likes it also, replacing a very nice Dell Studio XPS (i5 CPU). This Amazon-ordered one has only a 5400 rpm hard drive, but I don't need (in my home and travel) the faster one. Remember, your MS Performance score is determined by the least fast component, which currently (assuming you don't go to an SSD hard drive) is about 5.9 on the 7.6 scale. The 5400 will score slightly lower than the 7200, but everything else critical to use (CPU, RAM, optical drive, etc.) runs significantly faster, often making up for the slower hard drive. And where the Toshi ran hot (not burning, but definitely uncomfortable after a short while of use), the HP gets warm, but not hot. Despite the fingerprints on the dark umber showing (not a performance issue), I found the fingerprint reader to be accurate and helpful (chuckle). So no miracle here, but a definitely worthwhile upgrade for me, and I saved nearly $400 from HP's website. The Toshi was very good 2 years ago, this HP is enough better to justify this under-$1,000 purchase.
Overall very pleased with this laptop and it's price. I couldn't find any other similar laptop for under 1k!I purchased this laptop for my sister for school. She is an architecture student and we couldn't afford a mac.
I must say I am very pleased with the service. I was a bit worried though, because the estimated delivery was about 2 weeks and she was leaving the country for school but it came way before time and was shipped the day after I made the order.
The laptop itself ran smoothly and fast but it is heavy! and the charger is huge! Overall, it's not the best for my sister's field but it works well enough. I would definitely recommend this laptop for personal use or students.I buyed it on april 2012, it was one of the best laptop on the market on that time. It works very fast, all my work is done with a bunch of speed. I'm an IT Engineer and I use it for my work. I run different virtual machines, Visual Studio 2012 and others memory and processor consuming task. I also a photographer, so, sometimes I use photoshot, adobe lightroom at the same time. I recomment it for any one buying a laptop.I did a lot of research before I bought my new computer because the last one I had was horrible. I had an older Toshiba Satellite, which never worked quickly from the get-go. I was used to frequent internet shutdowns and major freezing issues in all programs. This is a major upgrade. It only slows when I'm running complex algorithms on large datasets, although even when aligning three whole bacterial genomes, I could still run others applications fine. I ran a program to annotate genomes which I was warned would take hours, but it took about 10 minutes. It stays pretty cool and quiet. Its a very attractive computer, especially with the bluish backlighting and the black aluminum case (the dark umber). The Norton security was a bit of an irritant, as I had to open Windows in safemode to enable its uninstallment. I do like typing on the keyboard for some reason, although it took some getting used to as the keys are spaced differently than on other machines. The speakers sound great! Definitely doesn't sound like a laptop; they also get very loud. I like the fingerprint pass a lot, but it can't be used outside of unlocking your computer and internet explorer, so its functionality is limited if you use a different web browser.
It is heavier than some of my friends' Macs or smaller computers, but this is because everyone else is buying 13" screens or less. I wanted a larger screen some things just can't be visualized in 13". The power cord adaptor is large, but you might not even need to carry it with you, as the battery lasts about 4 hours. The computer is thin and easy to carry. It feels like your holding a textbook. I can't think of any problems that I have had with this computer. Everything works as it is supposed to, and it was a great price for the functionality!
I bought mine directly from HP and it said it would take 2 weeks to arrive. But it actually came in about 5 days, I think.
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