HP Laptop

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Welcome to our HP laptop reviews and comparison guide. In this comparisons guide we will overview and review the various HP laptops and our favorite HP online shopping destinations.

Hewlett Packard markets the popular Pavilion, Compaq Presario, and HP Compaq business laptops. HP does an excellent job at providing a range of notebooks to the meet the lifestyle requirement of almost anyone.

The Pavilion line in this HP laptop reviews guide will be a major focus because of its popularity and the wide range of choices available. We tend to look closely at the Pavilion notebooks too because we honestly have had good past experience with Pavilion notebooks.

These hugely popular Pavilion laptops are classified either as extreme multimedia, entertainment, travel/mobility, or everyday computing machines, and each series tailors to the specific needs of that particular user group. Choices are plenty and we are positive HP may just offer a lifestyle match for you.

If you’ve already read our Dell Laptops guide then you already pretty much know that we thrive on testing and reviewing laptops and other tech goodies, and performing all the dirty behind the scenes work allows us to provide you with simple straight up professional advice with the goal to help you find your perfect laptop.

HP Pavilion Laptop -Entertainment Series:

The Hewlett Packard Pavilion Entertainment Series laptops are well suited for multimedia and everyday computing chores.

The entertainment series are a popular midsize notebook and comparable to the Dell Inspiron midsize laptops.

HP Pavilion entertainment series notebooks come in 15.4 and 17-inch choices so they will meet the requirements of the occasional on the go user or desktop replacement customer respectively.

All you guys that are frequent travelers however may want to consider taking a look at the HP Pavilion travel/mobility series which we will review next.

Performance wise HP entertainment series offer leading-edge Intel or AMD processors and because of the processor power saving features the Pavilion entertainment series notebooks get good battery life despite all the raw power.

Depending on your usage and configuration, you can achieve around 3 hours of battery runtime. Be sure to check out our Laptop Batteries Tips & Tricks section for we show you how to get maximum battery life out of HP and all other laptops.

The Pavilion entertainment series also offer various optional features such as integrated webcam, fingerprint reader, and exterior high-gloss imprint finish. The high-gloss finish is pretty nice but we are big fans of the Dell Inspiron color and pattern options.

Concluding our Entertainment Series HP laptop reviews we definitely felt that the Pavilion entertainment series 15.4-inch laptops will be a great buy for occasional on the go user users, and the 17-inch models will make for a great desktop replacement for others looking in that direction.

Remember to visit our Laptop Comparisons Guide to compliment our HP laptop reviews. We help you pinpoint your perfect laptop by shedding light on the different types such as ultra portable, thin & light, midsize, desktop replacement, and the tablet PC.

HP Pavilion Laptop – Travel/Mobility Series:

The Hewlett Packard Pavilion Travel/Mobility Series laptops are designed with mobility in mind and we see them making a great companion for many travelers or on the go users.

Current HP travel/mobility notebooks are all under 6-pounds and they come in 12.1, and 14.1-inch flavors. Their 14.1-inch dv2800t laptop has a rated battery life of just over 3 hours and the dv2700 laptops are rated for just over 4 hours.

Worth noting is the shorter tablet HP tx2000z 12.1-inch notebooks runtime of a sub par 2-hours. Normally laptops of this size we would expect a longer overall runtime but its use of the AMD Turion line of processors instead of the more mature Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors are the most likely cause to this deficit.

Like the entertainment series Pavilions, this series also offer the various optional features such as the integrated webcam, fingerprint reader, and exterior high-gloss imprint finish.

Overall the HP travel/mobility series notebooks are a good buy for travelers but we personally were not too impressed with the smaller AMD Tablet PC tx2000z models lackluster battery runtime. We did however enjoy the overall package of the 14.1 inch travel/mobility laptops.

Don’t forget to check out our Dell Laptop Reviews for the Dell Inspiron in our opinion is often a more flexible buy. Even so HP laptops are a worthy contender and worth exploring.

HP Pavilion Laptop – Extreme Multimedia Series:

Extreme multimedia series laptops are HP’s premium entertainment and games powerhouses made specifically for hardcore multimedia and PC gaming enthusiasts.

As of our HP laptop reviews the extreme multimedia laptops are branded as the HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment Notebook PC and they are customizable through HP online.

Customization options include the fastest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, gigantic 20.1-inch screens, loads of memory, high-end 3D/Gaming graphics cards, optional next-gen blue-ray or HD DVD drives, and the other features such as a fingerprint reader, webcam, Bluetooth wireless technology, and more.

HDX series laptops are also configured with an HDTV tuner and a 4 speaker sound system with subwoofer. We test drove the sound system with a blue-ray movie and were personally impressed with the sound quality.
Looking for a portable package? Forget about it, these muthas push 15.5 pounds of girth. This is of course to be expected from the sheer size of the notebook, especially apparent the moment you pull it out of the box and plant your eyes on its gigantic screen for the first time.

Out of every laptop reviewed in our HP laptop reviews guide, the HDX series stands out in all respect.

We were fortunate to get our hands on the 20.1-inch WUXGA HD 1080p laptop and we were personally blown away. Our blue-ray test movie looked stunning. The screen has a whopping 1920×1200 pixels which allows two windows to be viewed side by side with ease.
HP Extremem multimedia laptop sideviewIf you plan on purchasing an HDX and see yourself one day using it away from an electrical source, we highly recommend you take a close look at our Laptop Batteries Tips & Tricks page. We don’t’ see anyone getting anywhere near the up to 2 hours of run time claimed on HP’s website. A second battery would be $130 well spent if you plan on going mobile ever with the HDX.

To make a long story short we were impressed with the HP Pavilion HDX laptops screen size and clarity, sound quality of the speaker system, and the overall package.

We do not feel the HDX will ever make a great mobile everyday laptop because of size, weight, battery performance, and the price premium. However if a powerful desktop replacement is what you are looking for the HDX is a worthy contender.

Many of you gamer and multimedia fanatics the HDX will make a good companion for you as long as you have a bit of money to spare, but do check out the Dell XPS Gaming Laptop Review before forking out the dough.

HP Pavilion Laptop – Special Edition Series:

In a nutshell the HP Pavilion Special Edition series laptops are similar to other HP Pavilion laptops.

They come with standard components and also HP gives you the option to configure in some nex-gen components such as blue-ray and wireless-N among other things.

One main difference however is their stylish case exterior options and a few extra goodies that are included such as a matching slip case or messenger bag depending on the model. Nothing spectacular and not as configurable as the Dell Inspiron case options but still a cool option over standard Pavilions.

While we wrote our HP laptop reviews, Special Edition laptops came in either 15.4 or 14.1 configurations and exterior options were ceramic white, bronze, and what they call an Artist Edition that offers a stylish drawing on the case. We currently like the ceramic white or bronze finished model out off current options. Do expect exterior flavors to change over time.

Performance wise you have a choice of fast Intel Core 2 Processors and up to 4 GB of memory, plus the option of integrated Intel graphics or discrete NVIDIA graphics cards.

With the discrete graphics option you can pick up an HDMI output or HD DVD option. HDMI is a cool option if you currently have an HD TV. We don’t currently recommend HD DVD but instead BlueRay if available because Blueray is going to be the dominant standard in our opinion.

Other standard features are a 5-in-1 integrated digital card reader for your different digital camera memory cards, integrated webcam with microphone and fingerprint reader.

Overall the Special Edition Series are a nice little refresh to the HP Pavilion line but we’d personally like to see more case exterior flavors similar to the Dell Inspiron. Performance wise they offer rock solid Intel processors and the ability for large hard drives and gigs of memory like other HP notebooks so they will be a great digital companion.