HP Pavilion DV4T 14.1-Inch Widescreen Laptop

Had the Pavilion DV4T-1200 laptop from HP since February 2009. The motherboard gave out in July 2010. I've searched all over and found a few stores who sell the part, but it is more than 50% of the cost of a brand new laptop. After searching through HP's support site, I found an article which described my problem (black screen, LED's light up, then nothing happens). I performed the steps of a hard reset, removing the memory, and removing the hard drive. With the memory and hard drive put back in I still had only a black screen and some lights.

The kicker is I then followed the final step and contacted HP support via phone. After a quick description of the problem, he offered me several packages ranging from $50 to $400. I chose $50, and the customer service rep proceeded to walk me through the exact steps that were detailed in the support article online. He did not deviate from the same steps I had just performed. After realizing I had been taken for a ride, I complained, but was told that I had agreed to the service. Be very wary of HP's support, it seemed to be a lot of smoke and mirrors without any actual content. In the end, I was told that I would have to pay $398 for service and replacement parts in order to get the laptop working again.

I can't speak for everyone who has one of these Pavilion laptops, but my experience has been less than pleasant and HP will never receive any further business from me.

As a side note I also have a HP laptop for work. It is a different model and has had 3 AC Adapters, a motherboard, and a display go bad. This all happened in the last 2.5 years.

I bought the HP dv4t laptop about 8 months ago. I have used many different laptops but have found this one is a great deal for the price, especially when it is on sale. After bad experiences with other brands of PC laptops, I had settled on getting a laptop though HP.

I wanted a small size laptop that would be easy to carry around but also wanted extra features and memory that did not come in other small laptops and netbooks (i.e. DVD drive). I liked the idea of getting a Mac but didn't want to spend the money.

After reading reviews from consumer reports (they ranked this laptop very well) and other review sites I settled on the dv4t. Most of the negative reviews mentioned a loud cooling fan. For me, the only time the fan is loud is when I start the laptop or when I first put a CD/DVD in. Otherwise it is very quiet.

Now I'm not a person that high memory games or programs running but I do usually have a ton of windows open at once and this laptop has been much faster and rarely freezes.

The one thing that bothers me about the laptop (which is why I'm giving it a 4 instead of 5) is because of the mouse. It works just fine, but if you spend a lot of time on the laptop the material the pad is made of (shiny surface feel) is annoying on the tip of your finger. The finger someone sticks to the pad so it isn't as easy to move the finger as other surfaces. This can easily (and inexpensively) be solved by buying a cheap mouse that goes into the USB port.

Buy HP Pavilion DV4T 14.1-Inch Widescreen Laptop Now

I bought the laptop 13 months ago and after 2 months, the battery was unable to hold a charge anymore so it was no longer portable. HP claims that the 1 year warranty covers everything EXCEPT batteries and it will cost $150 to replace. Now, 13 months later, the screen is DEAD and wont project. HP claims my warranty expired 2 weeks ago and it will cost $482 to replace (which 80% what I payed for the laptop to begin with...not including replacing the battery for $150). Did I mention that the replacement battery no longer holds a charge anymore? when I unplug it, it only lasts 6 minutes!! Avoid at ALL costs!! It is a money pit and HP won't stand by their products at ALL unless you pay crazy amounts of money. Please learn from my mistake!

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