I’ve been looking for a new laptop for a couple of months now. My MacBook Pro is nearly 3 years old, still has the original Core Duo cpu, and it over heats so much it just freezes. I had Apple look at and they replaced a heat sink but it seemed like it didn’t help. They also replaced the battery and power adapter plug – still didn’t help. They finally said that the temperature is normal and they can’t do anything else. My co-worker’s newer MacBook Pro doesn’t heat up as bad. Anyways…
I started looking at the netbooks. They are very light-weight, ultra portable, no CD/DVD-rom drives. I thought it would be perfect for what I need. I can still carry my MBP and have a netbook too. I waited and waited. Then I saw an ad at Office Depot for a laptop. It was a total opposite of what a netbook is but for the price I had to take a look. I ended up buying the HP dv9999us. Here are the specs:
- AMD Turion-X2 64bit 2.0GHz
- 4GB ram
- 250GB hdd
- 17″ WXGA 1440×900 BrightView LCD
- USB 2.0 (4x)
- Firewire 400 (1x)
- S-Video out
- Built-in web cam
- Media remote control
- 2 audio out headphone jacks and 1 input
- 5-in-1 memory card reader
- Express card slot
You can view the hardware specs here. So after about 2 weeks of use, here’s a list of likes and dislikes.
LIKES:
- 4GB ram
- 64 bit OS and CPU
- numeric keypad is part of the keyboard
- 17″ screen is great
- Vista Home Premium 64bit has been impressively stable (so far)
- memory card reader
- has remote control for media software and can be stored in the extreme card slot
- built-in webcam
- after rebates the laptop costs only $490
- physical on/off switch for WiFi
- no incompatibilities so far being Vista and 64bit (programs that are 64bit are stored in the Program Files folder while the rest are stored in Program Files x86)
- S-Video out support
- light scribe DVDRW drive
DISLIKES:
- media buttons on top of the keyboard are too senstive
- video card is not all that good when it comes to games
- right, Shift button is awkwardly positioned and size is smaller than usual – I sometimes press “/” key to the left of it
- heavy 7.7lbs (but it is a 17″ laptop)
- media software isn’t too responsive, too cluttered – OS X has a more intuitive interface
- lots of pre-installed software (can be removed, but why are they there in the first place – doesn’t exists in any Apple computer)
- took almost an hour to access the desktop during first boot – must be a Vista thing
- no HDMI support, but no biggie
- sometimes I hear buzzing sound when the laptop seems like it’s heating up – I’ve had this happen on several other laptops so it seems normal
Overall the laptop is great for the price. My views towards Vista have changed a little bit. It seems the 64 bit version runs a little more stable than the 32 bit version. I do miss my MacBook Pro and OS X but I don’t miss the overheating. I still have Apple desktops at home and at work so it’s not that bad.
So let me ask you this, would you recommend I pick one up just to use for traveling? I wouldn’t really use it when I’m home or at the office, since I have both PC and Mac desktops that are both great and I wouldn’t change at thing with either of them. I had an HP laptop 2 years ago and it crapped out on me so many times I gave it to charity.. They’re probably still cursing me.. lol The problem I had was with the monitors backlight or something like that they said, I had it repaired but it still had problems and was never the same. It blacked out in the middle of working that made me finally say.. “That’s it!”.
So, now I’m going on vacation for 3 weeks in 5 days and I’m thinking if I should pick up a fairly cheap but reliable laptop for touching base at the office and replying to “urgent’ emails so I don’t come home to an inbox that’s a headache!
Brenda~
I’m not too sure you would want to drag around a 17″ laptop on vacation, it’s pretty heavy. If you’re only going to use it for emails and surfing the internet and if you can get wifi access, I would recommend getting a netbook. I recently got one and blogged about it here http://abbyandwin.net/blog/2009/01/22/asus-eeepc-900a-netbook/. It’s not a full blown laptop but if you are primarily looking for a device that will get you online, this is what you should get. I’ve had a very bad experience with an Acer laptop recently so I’m not sure how well their netbooks are. But Asus, Dell, HP, MSI are just some that make them. Other than that, if you have an iPhone or Blackberry – that should do the trick too unless you’re going to a place where you will incur roaming charges.
Hope that helps.
Hello All,
Thank you for the review it is usefull to evaluate. I am looking for a notebook too and was interested in the HPDV9999. It certainly has an impressive hardware for casual users and at a good price.
On a side note to Sherwin. Sherwin did the apple support guys clean the air filter on the machine, I am sure they did but if they did not then that would explain by changing the heat sink did not really help as the air flow is still blocked.
It would be very surprising to know that as hardware gets older it heats up more, that would be the first time I have heard it.
Anyway I just wanted to throw out this possibility.
Thank you all.
Regards
Ash