Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Pavilion DV2940SE 14.1-inch Laptop (2.10 GHz AMD Turion X2 TL-62 Dual Core Mobile Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

I bought this laptop about a week ago, and I've got to say, it's a well rounded machine. Graphics are on par for what you're paying for (I got mine at Office Depot for $750), and this being my first experience with vista, I got to say, its not as bad as I thought. Back to the graphics, this isn't an Alienware, that said, I installed DOOM 3 and it did well, aside from some anti-aliasing hiccups and slow-downs during extreme high action. One thing you should definitely take note of is battery life. I bought this PC for school, and there are days where it just makes it through the day without plugging in. Definitely bring an AC adapter if you'll be moving around a lot. The laptop overall is light weight, and can be used comfortably on your lap, although the battery does get hot at times. I give this laptop a 3 out of 5.

I don't know how this laptop can be reviewed poorly. For one thing it is amazing on paper with 4 gigs ram and 320 gigs storage, and it really delivers on speed and performance. The battery life isn't the best, but at school or starbucks there should be outlets anyways. It is also a very nice looking laptop with all the best features. It has a very nice media center with attractive, backlit, touch sensitive buttons at the top. This even has a remote with convenient storage inside the laptop. It also works very well in terms of range and registering all clicks. When watching movies or listening to music the speakers sound very impressive for a laptop because it's altec lansing. I don't even need to hook it up to my standalone speakers. The keyboard isn't the best I've seen but it has a nice firmness to it and does what it should. Also it's nice how the ctrl key is in the corner and fn is moved to the right because that is what I'm used to from desktop keyboards. One of my only complaints is that the mousepad (I forget what it's actually called) is a little grabby, but mostly it works fine. I also like how it can be turned on and off with a dedicated button. The only other thing that I'm sort of disappointed with is the quality of the webcam; however, most other laptops in the price range have the same quality anyways. I will be using this laptop for years to come and I'm confident it will last because it has excellent, sturdy build quality from a trusted name brand, hp.

I have found this medium size laptop suitable for everyday tasks and very basic video editing. I like that it is compact but doesn't sacrifice on keyboard size. The screen is clear and vibrant. As for battery life...I've been able to get a solid 2.25 hours while watching a DVD and surfing the web over WiFi.

This computer is AWFUL! It acts like it is possessed most of the time. I have called HP to fix it and they have tried to over the phone (I have had it "fixed" 3 times) but an hour later the same thing happens again. This computer has many obnoxious quirks including have the volume button pop up when not pressed so that the computer cannot be used for a solid minute, the mouse has times when it goes crazy, there will be times when I click on an item and it will keep popping up until I unplug the computer and remove the battery, the disc drive also goes back and forth between working and not working. I am now trying to return the product because I don't even want to think about how it will act when it is older. The problem is that everyone at HP is telling me different things including that I can and cannot return it to HP directly. I spent a long time trying to track down the receipt for them only to have no one no what I was talking about later. I have spent at least 10 hours on the phone with complete idiots in 20 (seemingly) different countries who do not know anything about these computers. If I had the money to buy another computer I would in a heartbeat because this one and the customer "support" behind it sucks. If I was allowed to swear on this I would because I hate this product and company so much. It also has many other quirks that I cannot even remeber.

The computer is pretty good for the price. It has the speed I need and most of the hookups. The only issues I have with it are minor. There's a hum that comes from my external speakers/headphones and mic. Though, it's not horribly loud, and it's possible that might be because I only have average quality equipment. Also, HDMI was advertised on a retailer's website, but it has no HDMI port. Lastly, you don't get a Windows disk. You have to create your own restore disks from a separate partition on the hard drive that takes up space on the advertised 320 GB HDD (which wouldn't be horrible if it was exactly what you'd get on a Windows factory disk since you could just reformat later). The problem is that it forces you to keep all the crap they load on the computer (HP factory settings) and spend hours trying to uninstall it all instead of just reformating and reloading Vista. All-in-all, these are minor issues that are more annoying than anything else. For a brand-name computer, it's pretty damn good. To have one custom made with the same specs would normally cost two to four times as much.