Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Pavilion DV2910US 14.1-inch Laptop (1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium) Black

When I went looking for a notebook to replace my Powerbook G4, I did not want to buy another Apple notebook -- they are expensive and I just want a plain notebook to do daily stuff on. I ended up getting the dv2910us and have been pleasantly surprised by the notebook. The build quality of the notebook is great, no creaks from the case. The noise level of the notebook is generally unnoticeable -- except when the room is dead quiet. The screen on this notebook is gorgeous. The keyboard is comfortable. The trackpad is smooth and responsive -- and the one thing I like about the trackpad is that it has and "on/off" button, so that I can turn it off if I am using a mouse.

The software that is pre-installed is kept to a minimum, which is great. I had no trouble removing most of the stuff that I did not want. The other hardware is pretty standard. The notebook is fast and Windows Vista Home Premium runs well on the hardware.

CASE DESIGN:
The laptop has plain boring black case, which is helped only by the subtle, but interesting design on the cover. It's not very noticeable or unique, but better than nothing. The cover and the screen itself is very glossy, and therefore prone to fingerprints, but the laptop comes with a cloth you can use to wipe them away with ease. Though I like that the screen is glossy, it can be annoying at times due to glare.

Furthermore, the power plug is on the right side of the laptop, which is rather inconvenient, especially if the outlet is on your left side. It would be better if the plug was located in the back. However, I do like how there are 2 USB ports on the right and one on the left, rather than all on one side, the back, or stacked on top of each other. This makes it easier to plug and remove them.

KEYBOARD DESIGN:
The touchpad is glossy, like the rest of the laptop (but fingerprints do not show up on it), in comparison to Toshiba's commonly matte touchpads. The touchpad's buttons are also deeper, so you get more depth when pressing them, whereas Toshiba laptops have very flat buttons. One thing I like about HP laptops is the ability scroll via the touchpad by moving your finger downwards on the side of it. This is a unique and handy function, even though it can be hard to control sometimes--it's better than not having the function at all. This laptop also has a button for disabling the touchpad, so that you don't accidentally move the cursor when you're using a different mouse or something of that nature, which is quite handy.

On the other hand, the touch-sensitive Quickplay strip above your keyboard is more annoying than useful. It is supposed to be convenient for controlling media like DVDs etc. and controlling your volume. First of all, I find that the play, pause, fast forward, rewind, and stop buttons completely useless because I don't use any of the Quickplay features, except a DVD once in a while, and these buttons do not control your default media player (such as Winamp)--you must use the function keys instead, which can be annoying since you have to press 2 buttons at the same time. Secondly, when you press one of the buttons on the Quickplay strip, it is rather slow to react. For this reason, it is very difficult to control the volume using this strip, although it does work and is sufficient for my needs--I'd still prefer a regular volume control wheel or something. The one thing I do like about this strip is the "Mute" button. It seems more responsive than the other buttons.

PERFORMANCE:
With 3GB RAM, this laptop is very fast (this is the most RAM you can utilize for 32-bit Vista, which is included with this product). I use Windows Vista with Aero and Search Indexing enabled--all that jazz--and it runs perfectly, no lag whatsoever. Even with Windows' built in Disk Defragmenter defragging or Acronis Image Home creating a full backup in the background on High Priority, there was little to no difference in performance (at least with regular usage). And this is all on medium performance too--imagine how fast it would be on maximum performance! I have no problems running Firefox, AIM, Photoshop CS, MS Word, etc. all at the same time, whereas on my old desktop, I would probably get a "Virtual Memory low" warning.

HEAT & FAN:
The fan can be somewhat loud in a completely quiet room sometimes, but is otherwise, you won't notice it--my roommate's Dell laptop has a much louder fan that completely drowns out mine. The laptop is cool for the first 2 hours, but when running on battery, will get too hot for my lap. However, when plugged in, it seems to stay cool.

GRAPHICS & GAMING:
Although this laptop can handle light gaming, such as Counter-strike etc., it will probably not do well with the higher end games of today because the graphics card is integrated and therefore, too slow for it. However, the graphics card performs just fine for all other functions (and looks great!).

WEBCAM & MIC:
The integrated mic and webcam are very useful and function excellently. Although I don't use either very much, it would be nice if the webcam software had a way to time shots--there might be a function for this but it's not very obvious... Another thing is that the software included (Cyberlink YouCam) is a nuisance at first--when you first open it and download the update, it will place a shortcut on your desktop. If you delete the shortcut and then restart your computer, it will be there again. The only way I know of fixing this is by changing the registry key (Google it).

SLEEP MODE:
The sleep mode on this laptop is very stable and it remains completely cool and silent. Even if the battery runs out during sleep mode, the laptop automatically hibernates, so when you turn on the laptop again, it will turn on faster and still have your session in memory. However, when waking up from sleep or hibernate, the laptop can be slow to recognize changes--for example, if you change wireless network locations, it will take about a minute to realize it needs to connect to a different network. Sometimes, it will also take a while to realize that you have plugged a mouse in to use before waking the computer up, so you will have to unplug and replug it back in. Otherwise, sleep mode is very handy, fast, and stable.

BATTERY OBSERVATIONS:
- With Wi-Fi card on, the laptop lasts for a little more than 2.5 hours on battery before reaching 10-20%. Not bad.
- It takes about 1.5 hours to recharge from 10%-20%.

OTHER NOTES:
- Very portable and light at 14.1"
- The Wi-Fi switch is uncomfortably in the front and somewhat easy to switch off by accident, but it's only happened to me once so far.
- Comes with nice pair of earbuds and a remote (very nifty!)
- Does not come with recovery CDs, but they can be made or ordered.
- The power plug has three pins or blades (what's the word for it?), rather than the typical two. This is inconvenient because you have to get a power plug adapter in order for it to fit into certain power sockets.

OVERALL:
I definitely recommend this laptop. It is more than enough for the majority of users--average and power users alike, with the only exception being serious gamers, and a perfect option for students. It was an absolute bargain for me, snagging it for $549.

I bought this because I needed this for schoolwork in general, as well as on a 3-month exchange, and I use it for internet browsing, word processing, and other not super intense applications like Audacity or Picasa.

PROS
-The speakers, though not especially loud, have nice quality sound.
-Touchpad can be turned on/off, but not accidentally.
-Included remote control. I use it way more than I though I would. Included earbuds were a nice touch, too.
-The webcam and software for it are decent, good enough for basic skyping or video recording.
-Not very much bloatware and stuff. Still more than a mac or something, but overall decent. I enjoyed my trials of Office and Norton, and was happy they included it even though trials usually bug the heck outta me.
-2 headphone jacks. I've ended up watching stuff with a friend several times in public places or on trains and stuff.
-3 gigs of RAM are more than plenty to run what I have - browsers, office, Picasa, GIMP, etc. with plenty in the background. I have a nasty habit of running things that make my computer look pretty but take up far too much memory.
-2 microphones so that they can record in stereo. Not that I have had any use for that, but I'm sure someone has.
-For the price here now, you could do better. I only paid $550 for mine, so it was a steal.

CONS
-The glossy screen is impossible to use outside or even in a sunny room.
-The volume controls on the 'quickplay' bar or whatever are harder to quickly press because the touch sensitive controls (rather than classic buttons or even better - a turnable dial) you have to sort of sit your finger there and rock back and forth, or repeatedly swipe. Sometimes and irregularly when controlling the volume, an overlay appears in front of your screen and stays for a slightly annoyingly long time.
-The switch to turn the wireless card on and off is in front and super-easy to accidentally change.
-No included recovery disks. Burning your own is a pain.
-When running on battery, it gets pretty warm. Warmer than many machines I've used.
-I'm not a big fan of the HP logo (It says entertainment PC right under it. Is that saying that I'm not serious, I only watch DVDs? I don't really like that, or the placement) being in the corner of the front (back? I don't know. You know, the part on the back of the screen) of the laptop. Also, it's a dust/fingerprint magnet (but a cleaning cloth was included).

I have this laptop and I must say for an hp it has been relatively problem free. In the 3 years working retail computer repair I have seen many hp's come into our store with bizarre problems. This laptop has only had 2 in the 5 months I have been using it. First is the issue that you will see all over google known as the "fan problem" or "fan pulse". The laptop, seemingly for no reason, will start to pulse the cooling fan from high to low for an extended period of time. This happens at random even when the laptop is sitting with no open programs and not being used. HP has issued bios updates but the only thing that this seems to do is turn the fan on constantly, it does not stop the pulsing. The second problem, which has seemed to stop since I am no longer using an hp ac adapter, was a very jumpy non-sensitive mouse. While using the hp ac adapter the mouse would become very jumpy, non-responsive, and lose almost all sensitivity. I have switched to a kensington universal charger and have not had the problem since. Just as a little fyi, the hp ac adapter developed a crack from the intense amount of heat it would generate and partially melted itself, that is why I have stopped using that charger. I have seen my fair share of hp ac adapters melt the wires or melt off inside the laptop.

I've had this laptop for about a month now, so I've gotten a chance to field test it fairly well. The keyboard is just a titch cramped, but the keys are responsive and not too loud. One thing that did annoy me about the layout of the keyboard is that the shortcut for changing the sound is right above the delete key. I've hit the sound quite often when I go to delete something, then I get the annoying pop up right smack dab in the middle of the screen showing me the sound level.

Other quibbles - the CD drive is on the right side, where most people are right handed and the mouse will be. The result is that you have to move the mouse every time that you want to put a disc in. The ethernet port is on the left side, towards the middle, and is a bit too close to the USB port (I'd have prefered it in the back or at least the rear of one side). There are three USB ports, two on the right and one on the left.

The touch pad is responsive and I've had no issues with it. I like the fact that HP did not load this with a ton of software, it was really easy to remove any unwanted stuff. Battery life has been good for me, but I haven't really put it through it's paces it that deparment so I won't state too much about that.

All in all, minor quibbles about design and placement aside, this is a good all purpose laptop and I'm quite pleased with it.