Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Pavilion DV9920US 17-inch Laptop (2.00 GHz AMD Turion X2 TL-60 Dual Core Mobile Processor, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

This is an exceptional laptop though it does run hot on your lap so I purchased a laptop cooler just so it lifts it off my lap with circulation underneath and it keeps it cool enough so it doesn't shut down without using the usb fan which is great because I don't want to be listening to a usb fan when I'm working.

The first laptop I purchased would crash when it got too hot because I had it directly on my lap without much circulation.

The laptop I have now with the cooler doesn't ever crash.

Another benefit that hasn't been mentioned is that there is room for 2 hard drives in the chassis. I put in another 250 gb laptop which is great since I am an avid photographer.

Vista handles smoothly with 3gb of ram yet it runs faster with 4 which I put in.

It handles photo editing programs with ease and it turns out that I was a Vista resistor but now I love it!

The only thing I am not completely satisfied with is the sound when playing dvd's and some youtube videos. I don't know if it's the drivers but when playing dvd's the volume is not as loud as when playing music. Perhaps there is a software program that can boost the volume.

I like the webcam and enjoy that it is integrated. I recorded a video of me playing guitar and singing and posted it on youtube and it came out great. I like the software and the hardware.

Do be careful with the ac adapter plug because if it is damaged it's a costly and difficult repair and it's easy to damage if you trip on the cord. I learned this the hard way with a dell laptop.

I purchased this laptop in Sept. 2008. Has had problems off and on ever since I bought it until yesterday I was doing an update that HP recommended and the computer crashed. 2 months out of warranty and HP will do nothing. I also purchased a different HP laptop at the same time last year and its hard drive crashed about 2 months ago and the printer I also purchased just had to be replaced as well. HP is complete garbage.

If you are a touch typist, DO NOT BUY this computer! Instead of the right Shift key being the normal double size key located directly below the Enter key, the space is now occupied by the Up Arrow key, while the right Shift is a single size key located below and to the left of the Enter key. You will constantly hit the "up arrow" key when you want to capitalize and then shift your typing to the line above; it is very frustrating.

All I have to say is that this laptop has stood up well to the amount of abuse I put it through. This is my 2nd HP Pavilion laptop and I have noticed with both that after a month or so, there is a little play in the screen hinge. It is a little loose, but everything about the system functions properly and I could not be happier!

I have owned at least 10 laptop computers over the past 20 years and this is the worst one yet. It is slow, the screen is dull and the keyboard in unresponsive. My programs constantly crash for no apparent reason and when I try to recover, I always lose data. HP Technical Support is no help at all - they are polite and interested, but seem to not know how to approach the problem. They always want to start with the problem being a user problem and I can really understand that, but after just a few minutes conversation with me, they should be able to detect that I am at least a semi-expert user. I don't call them until I have used all my knowledge and consulted all my other resources, yet they still want to start with the basics (like clearing cookies and temp files). This is the first HP I ever owned and will certainly be the last. It should have told me something that after I bought it at what seemed a very good price ($849), every vendor on earth had it on sale within a couple of weeks for $550 to $650. It was also a tip off that even HP had a hard time identifying the product - tried to tell me that the model doesn't exist until I guided them to it on their website. Toshiba makes the best notebook on the market and I wish I had gone with my first instinct to get another one, but I followed advice from others - won't do that again.