Hp Pavilion Dv7-1245dx Notebook

I bought this laptop refurbished back in April 2009. After about 4 months the hard drive crashed but not big deal I picked up a new one that was faster for $65. It came with Windows Vista and it's speed was ok for the first month but after that it literally took 10 minutes to boot up before I could do anything in Windows. I have since installed Windows 7 and it works GREAT! It boots up in about 1 minute now and I have the same software installed as I had with Windows Vista (if not more). I love the HDMI port so I can hook it up to my 42" LCD tv and surf the internet from the couch (as I'm doing right now). I wouldn't pay $1,000 for this laptop (I paid $550 for it refurbished) but I would recommend this laptop to anyone, no problems here!

I am by no means a "techie," so my review is not going to be technical at all. I have had my laptop for over 6 months now and the only problem I have experienced is it locking up every now and then. I restart and have no problems afterward. This happens maybe once per month. I have heard Windows Vista could be the cause of this, but I am not sure.

I also have a problem finding some of my documents simply because I'm not familiar with Vista, but this is nothing that can't be fixed with a little education.

I love the number pad on the side, I've always been bothered when I have to use the numbers above the letters. I like the chocolate color, it is so much more attractive than black. I have watched DVDs and they play great and look great on the screen. The sound is good, but gets a little "crackly" when too loud. The volume control located on the actual keyboard is a little sensitive, but I have gotten used to it and am okay with it now. I don't find the speed of this machine to be a problem, but I also use an external hard drive for all of my music and photo files, so I'm not using too much memory space.

The only major gripe I have, and it's trivial, is that it has been difficult finding a cute bag that fits the 17" size. All bags that are big enough are usually all black and look too professional or boring. I wanted something a little more colorful and am still searching. But I wouldn't trade the size of my laptop for a cute bag, I can't live without my number keypad on the side. :)

Buy Hp Pavilion Dv7-1245dx Notebook Now

My first DV-7 had a hard drive that went bad within a week. The second began to overheat (and subsequently shut-down) within the first 9 months.

Read Best Reviews of Hp Pavilion Dv7-1245dx Notebook Here

I bought this laptop in June of 2009. In September of 2009, the hard drive on it failed. No biggie, as I had my data backed up and it was under warranty. I figured, it was bound to happen to someone. Well, just today, the REPLACEMENT hard drive has ALSO FAILED.

I was under the impression HP made good quality notebooks. Unfortunately, after my purchase of this particular model, that perception has changed. This notebook runs exceptionally hot, even for low-memory-usage applications. It frequently shuts itself off for thermal protection, which means if you don't have a way to cool this laptop down, you better save your data and OFTEN.

This model also purports to have an ATI Radeon 3200 HD Mobility Graphics Card. If it does, it doesn't like to show itself. The graphics are gritty, slow to respond and overall do not function anywhere near as smoothly as purported to.

I would stay away from this laptop. There are other models available from other manufacturrs that will run double the memory usage and not run anywhere near as hot as this, nor will the hard drives fail every 3 months.

Want Hp Pavilion Dv7-1245dx Notebook Discount?

We got this 17-inch laptop because of its price, thinking we were getting a great deal. We should have read more about it. The machine is incredible slow for the CPU it carries and having it run Windows Vista doesn't help much either.

If you are on a low budget, unless you need more processing power, I would rather recommend a netbook. Otherwise, get yourself a Mac laptop. There are some running in the low $1,000's these days that will give you a lot more for your investment than this laptop.