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DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> Techies - What do ya think about this laptop?
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08/26/2007 12:15:42 PM · #1
//www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5978905

I know, it comes from Wally World, but I can't find specs like this for this price anywhere else (including newegg and others). So, what do ya think about it?

My turn ons are the 17" screen and the 2 gigs of RAM.
08/26/2007 12:38:45 PM · #2
Looks very nice. Only thing to gripe about would be the apparent lack of CF support in the multi-card reader, but externals are cheap.

edot: it's heavy as hell btw, don't know if you plan on using it as home or lugging it around on shoots for preview work. 7 pounds gets to be a shoulder burner pretty quick.

Message edited by author 2007-08-26 12:40:02.
08/26/2007 12:46:03 PM · #3
need to look more into the display..
08/26/2007 12:49:45 PM · #4
guess I'm cheaper...bought this one last week.

//www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5946617
08/26/2007 12:53:48 PM · #5
My 13 year old daughter worked all summer and saved up for a laptop. This is the one she bought yesterday.

Paulina's new computer
08/26/2007 01:07:47 PM · #6
I think bestbuy has this same HP for 100 bucks cheaper.
08/26/2007 02:03:48 PM · #7
Originally posted by routerguy666:

I think bestbuy has this same HP for 100 bucks cheaper.


Thanks, I'll have to check that out.

I want to stay in the 17+ screen size. As many know, I don't have the best vision in the world. I would sacrifice some performance for screen size.

As far as the weight is concerned, it would be mostly used at home and travel, but rarely would it be lugged around to shoots.

The lack of CF support did irk me a bit, but I do have both USB and Firewire CF readers here, so not too concerned.

Message edited by author 2007-08-26 14:04:32.
08/26/2007 10:11:00 PM · #8
If you plan on keeping this laptop for a while, I highly recommend getting a core 2 processor. Lenovo sells high quality laptops at good prices. It maybe slightly priced than your average dell, hp, but you are getting good quality and service. As an IT person, I come across a dozen brands, lenovo sticks out among all.

the trick with lenovo is to wait for the special coupon to come out. When you get that coupon working for you, then the price usually roams around 1000.
08/26/2007 11:30:35 PM · #9
Isn't the laptop Leroy is talking about a core 2 processor ?
I can' believe the price you guys pay for things in the States ! I'd buy two of them if that was the price in Australian dollars (and a Canon 40D and a Nikon D300).
I think the same HP laptop would be about $1900 here.
08/26/2007 11:55:26 PM · #10
I have this one with a few upgrades (battery, operating system etc.)

Only problems I had were with calibrating the monitor. Finally had to get a pantone huey. Vista is very different than XP. If you're a "super user" you may be very disappointed with it. If not, eh I wouldn't worry much.

It runs CS2, ps7 and gimp all nicely. Fairly fast, love the wireless, I've had no problem with it, and we've been traveling a good bit. Yes it's heavy, but I carry mine in a camera backpack along with my rebel and three lenses and accessories. As for the Missing CF, yeah that part sucks a bit, but you can get a reader for 20 bucks.

I did get mine directly from HP though. You might check there... we always put 3 year warranties on, and replace every 2-3 years anyway.
08/27/2007 12:11:44 AM · #11
WARNING WARNING WARNING

Most of it looks pretty good Leroy but the one Achilles heel of this system (and many laptops for that matter) is the hard drive, think about it....whats the slowest component of a pc nowadays...the hard drive right? that hard drive only spins at 5400 rpm....WAY SLOW you will be hating life once that thing starts to fill up. Why they continue to make these things with those 5400's is beyond me. if you buy that i would immediately buy one that spins at 7200. Personally in my desktop i have one that spins at 10,000 and i am starting to think that for my next build i will put in a 15,000, rpms make a HUGE difference in data access times....just some food for thought
08/27/2007 12:23:34 AM · #12
I doubt the HD would get close to full. I keep ALL my photos on external drives and music/video on temporarily on the HD.

My current desktop has two HDs the first is 28 Gig and is half full the other (which stores My Documents only) is 80 Gig and about 35% full at the moment.

So, HD fillin' is not a big concern for me. I'm a bit of a tightwad with HD space.

But, yeah, a 7200 rpm drive might not be a bad upgrade.

Should I be concerned that the RAM is maxed out at 2 Gigs?
08/27/2007 12:23:59 AM · #13
With 2 gig of ram, signifigant disk access will not be a frequent occurrence.

Reason they keep putting 5400 rpm drives in is to keep the cost down.

I have 15k scsi drives in my workstation here and they cost 400 bucks a pop. A 15k drive not even as large as the one in that HP laptop runs for $1100 - more than the cost of the laptop itself.

08/27/2007 01:00:07 AM · #14
HP is one of 3 reliable 'puters out there. everything else is for shit. The 2 others are Sony & Dell. If you go to the IT section of any store, say the geek squad at Best Buy, they will tell you all the others are the ones that get sent for repair most often.

I have had a vaio for 4 years and nothing has ever gone wrong with it. It still works better than anything else I've used since then.

Good luck with your choice!
08/27/2007 06:33:47 AM · #15
Originally posted by Rooster:

HP is one of 3 reliable 'puters out there. everything else is for shit. The 2 others are Sony & Dell. If you go to the IT section of any store, say the geek squad at Best Buy, they will tell you all the others are the ones that get sent for repair most often.

I have had a vaio for 4 years and nothing has ever gone wrong with it. It still works better than anything else I've used since then.

Good luck with your choice!


Wow. What a different opinion. For one -- the Geek Squad is NOT an IT section, division or any other organization. No offense, but I usually do exactly the opposite of what they tell me. Second, HP is not on my list of reliable laptops. Dell used to be but their quality is going down in my opinion. Sony has some good ones and some junk. Lenovo is quite well known and their stuff seems to be solid.

Frankly, I switched over to a Mac for my last laptop due to the crappy build quality of the competition. Yes, it costs more and has a smaller screen. But it weights a lot less (very important to me) and is built to take some abuse (even more important). As an added bonus, it doesn't run Windows as I really can't get on board with Vista.

To the OP:
For light travel use, I think you've found a decent 17" laptop at a good price. My only worries would be weight and as someone else suggested HD speed. Hard drives are easy to upgrade. Also, I'm really not sure how 2 gig of RAM will work with Vista. I'll never run Vista, so I really don't know, but early versions really sucked down the memory and with Photoshop running, I'm not sure how that will work. Also, with the shared video memory, if you want to do any video work, you may run into problems. But for the price -- good deal.
08/27/2007 06:53:09 AM · #16
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:

//www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5978905

I know, it comes from Wally World, but I can't find specs like this for this price anywhere else (including newegg and others). So, what do ya think about it?

My turn ons are the 17" screen and the 2 gigs of RAM.

It's 4:30am here and if my eyes are focused enough, that's the same thing I bought direct from HP about a year ago and paid much more than that. Though, the model number is different. I had one problem with the cover of the screen. It started to separate from the screen, but sent it to HP on Tuesday and had it back on Friday. It is a very thin laptop.
Not a HEAVY laptop, but not the lightest either. Maybe 5-6 lbs? Manageable for traveling.
The screen is nice (I'm using it as a desktop replacement for now), just needed calibrating. Big, bright and lots of different size options to suit many.
Keyboard takes getting used to, the 'shift' key on the right side is the same size as all the others, making it tough sometimes.
'Extra' numeric keys on the right comes in handy if you need the numbers a lot.

Overall though....I recommend it.


08/27/2007 09:21:08 AM · #17
Originally posted by fotomann_forever:

I doubt the HD would get close to full. I keep ALL my photos on external drives and music/video on temporarily on the HD.

My current desktop has two HDs the first is 28 Gig and is half full the other (which stores My Documents only) is 80 Gig and about 35% full at the moment.

So, HD fillin' is not a big concern for me. I'm a bit of a tightwad with HD space.

But, yeah, a 7200 rpm drive might not be a bad upgrade.

Should I be concerned that the RAM is maxed out at 2 Gigs?


one thing to keep in mind Leroy, even tho you feel like you wont fill the hd...we've been testing Vista at work for deployment in the org. and we have found that on a fresh install vista is taking up 17 gig just by itself! one thing windows is good at is being a hd hog, gets worse with each new iteration....me personally, i wont touch vista with a 10 foot network cable until the first service pack comes out
08/27/2007 09:35:40 AM · #18
I have this computer (with a 7200 rpm drive) and it works great. The RAM is NOT maxed out at 2 gigs, but 4 gigs... it just comes with 2 gigs. And yes, I do use Vista and it is fast enough. I run Audio recording software with 10 tracks being recorded at the same time. This kills most computers, but my little HP works like a charm.
08/27/2007 09:39:19 AM · #19
I don't know if anyone posted this but on first looks same configuration is available through hp's website for $799

//deals2buy.com/ (browse down the page and you will see this same one mentioned)

Looks like a great configuration btw!

Edit to correct the price!

Message edited by author 2007-08-27 09:41:16.
08/27/2007 09:44:30 AM · #20
Ok, now that I'm fully awake I can add I have a 100GB 7200RPM HD. HP dedicates about 10GB for a recovery folder (D Drive). Since you keep your files externally, maybe you can swap the bigger/slower HD for a smaller/faster one for the same price? But, I don't think Walmart would be able to do that because they buy certain configurations in bulk....that's how they keep prices lower.

Message edited by author 2007-08-27 09:45:10.
08/27/2007 10:32:41 AM · #21
Leroy,

I'm not sure I totally agree that HP is one of the more reliable, my daughters monitor started turning pink when you first turn it on less then a year into it and when the plug broke on the computer side of it I sent it in for repairs. They said they couldn't find anything wrong with the display so it just got worse and worse. Now just about a year out of warrenty, I guess it won't even display anything and when I contacted them on the phone they wanted $50.00 just for me to talk to second level tech support...I told the guy he was crazy since I just wanted to know if there was anyplace I could get it fixed or if it was worth it and he said "sir, we have a 99% over the phone fix rate and I'm certain they could help you". I told him it wasn't a software issue and didn't believe some guy over the phone could fix it. He again said they have a very high fix rate and just yesterday fixed a the exact same thing for someone else...yeah BS.

As a comparison, I bought a Dell latitude Pentium III c600 from my brothers company who resales the old systems they have to their employees when they upgrade. I got it for $65 bucks, but shortly afterwards the system would give me the blue screen of death and not allow me to install anything. Just days before talking to HP about my daughters, I got on the computer with dell and even though my service tag was expired they helped me troubleshoot the problem (hard drive), I installed a new one and am up and running on it ever since. They even helped me another time find the correct display drivers. It's going to replace the POS doorstop my daughter now has.

If you do get this laptop I would suggest getting it from someplace that offers an extended warrenty, some say it is a waste of money but not on something as fragile as a laptop, the cords are very prone to breaking both on the computer side and the cord side. For the little amount of money you can really save some headaches. Oh and by the way, I have a 17" laptop also and man is it nice to have the big screen and keyboard, I use the number pad all the time and get frustrated when I don't have one. The only downfall, which is probably not a concern for you, was finding a bag for it. I needed to travel some and ended up getting just a backpack and using the packing material that came with the laptop to keep it safe...so far so good.

Message edited by author 2007-08-27 10:37:03.
08/27/2007 11:20:37 AM · #22
Originally posted by mjwood0:



Frankly, I switched over to a Mac for my last laptop due to the crappy build quality of the competition. Yes, it costs more and has a smaller screen. But it weights a lot less (very important to me) and is built to take some abuse (even more important). As an added bonus, it doesn't run Windows as I really can't get on board with Vista.


After years of PC's with Windows I'm going to be converting to Mac with my next laptop purchase as well. Vista was the best thing Microsoft ever did for Apple, I've never read a bad review on Macbooks or OSX. I'm a geek and haven't had a problem with Windows (or even DOS or Linux) that I couldn't solve, I'm just tired of having major problems that I have to solve. It's gonna cost a little more but at least it's something I know will have minimum downtime and last for years. Not to mention with bootcamp if I run into the must have application that doesn't work on Mac (unlikely) I can still run it if I need to.

Message edited by author 2007-08-27 11:20:56.
08/27/2007 11:28:45 AM · #23
this is one I brought for my neighbor yesterday, I went with her and told her to get this one for her daughter, shes is only using it for MS word and the internet. I just hooked it up to their wireless internet and its found it right away with its built in wi-fi, so far no problems and the LCD is awesome, the new OS (vista) takes a while to startup but other than that its just fine

Toshiba Laptop
08/27/2007 11:55:01 AM · #24
Originally posted by mohhomad:

Originally posted by mjwood0:



Frankly, I switched over to a Mac for my last laptop due to the crappy build quality of the competition. Yes, it costs more and has a smaller screen. But it weights a lot less (very important to me) and is built to take some abuse (even more important). As an added bonus, it doesn't run Windows as I really can't get on board with Vista.


After years of PC's with Windows I'm going to be converting to Mac with my next laptop purchase as well. Vista was the best thing Microsoft ever did for Apple, I've never read a bad review on Macbooks or OSX. I'm a geek and haven't had a problem with Windows (or even DOS or Linux) that I couldn't solve, I'm just tired of having major problems that I have to solve. It's gonna cost a little more but at least it's something I know will have minimum downtime and last for years. Not to mention with bootcamp if I run into the must have application that doesn't work on Mac (unlikely) I can still run it if I need to.


You'll love a Mac if you've used Linux. Since it's built on top of OpenBSD, there is always a shell prompt just a couple clicks away. Very refreshing to be able to compile and run native applications without having to use anything but GCC.

As other's have said, I wouldn't touch Vista. I've seen some of the first roll-outs of Vista, and I wasn't impressed. In fact, I really think that the last good OS Microsoft came out with was Win 2000 (XP Pro isn't too bad either). But if you look at large corporations, very few are allowing even XP Pro on their networks and I haven't heard of any migrating to Vista. It's just too much of a memory hog and HD hog not to mention it boots slow. I won't even discuss viruses and the like.

Good luck! Try them in stores and if you're worried, get an extended warranty!
08/27/2007 12:50:15 PM · #25
Go to Circuit City or Best Buy and make sure you get the extended warranty. It is worth it. 30% of all laptops are defective. I don't know why. They just are, and they break verra easily. I've had 3 laptops and not one of them lasted over 18 months, and you know what? I've only ever had to pay full price for ONE Of them because I always buy the extended warranty. I put up $150 of my own money on my current laptop to get one with better specs than the one Circuit City was offering. But that's all.
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