Home > Consumer Reviews > HP Pavilion DV7-1170US 17.0-Inch Laptop (2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, Blu-Ray and DVD Drive, Vista Premium)

As a computer technician for a couple years its the fastest labtop I have ever dealt with to be honest..I ordered this Labtop for one of my clients and had the opportunity to set it up with windows 7.I think this labtop should be labeled as a Gaming Labtop and definitely a Desktop replacement.It played all the demanding high graphics games like prototype,crysis,call of duty WOW,Tom Clancy Hawx,Race On,Wolfenstein and a couple others without even lagging.I played all those games on the highest setting with dreamscenes enabled...and it didn't even hang or slow down for a split second....Its truly amazing with that HD screen..all the games look glassy and detailed...Right now I have removed all the games on my desktop it just doesn't look good anymore on my system....I am definitely going to try my best to order this labtop or even better for my personal use..It truly rocks..And big props goes out to RobertBagain for there fast shipping and having their items in emaculate condition even though it's a refurbished item..The labtop came without a scratch and as if it was brand new item..It worked without any problems atold...Keep up the good work RobertBargain...Hp really pulled out all the stops on this labtop.lol

Hi there , I har buy giving your computer shoppers a complete make over on this review. Lets stat off that Hewlett Packard is nothing more then a black market.
YES A CHINA MADE BLACK MARKET COMPUTERS! ALSO INTO THIS SPYWARE HARDARE AND SPYWARE SOFTWARE.
Hewlett Packard /EBAY/PAYPAL must go out of buiness. This is not hate message. Evne the real fact I do hate these big corperations.
The real deal of Hewlett Pachard or I like to call them parden my french to the consumers. Hewlett Phuckard. I am serius. lets start of with the DV9000, DV9200cto sereis Notebook computers
talk about bad design. using Cbina made black market parts. comes complete with spyware hardware and spyware software. Do not take it the wrong way. what I ment is my persioal ID and who I am where I live and what I do on the DV92000 series notebook will be sent on secret spyware hsardware and software is designed in to the Notebook computer. othter Dead design problems are
Over heating motherboard. that will over heat and dies. Power supply. runs to darn gone hot. Word of caution. may melt down or explode with out warning. Heavy amount of blue screen of death just on opening a foulder. I hade the windows go out of control and gut stuck or blue screen of death. Due to the graphic controlers and the OPEN-GL Files.
Hewlett Packard design to have no service. No warrenty. it clmes it dose however it dose not. Due to full cost of Hewlett Packard's corp level bank accounts. World wide bank accounts.
I kid you not. Let the warrenty due. Hewlett packard tech support is the far worst ever or even same as Dell. never the less let the warrenty die. Make Beleaved they fixed it.
Blacking out my own persional sofwrare that I paid money on. well becuasde I did not order it from HP it will not work. GTA IV PC for one example is also a spyware driven sending spy in my computers to block the software and the computer to work.
Hewlett pckard sold one of the three dv9000 series notebooks that are bead desisng. one was sold to some on in California. I wanted 8 months for a replacment. Due to the Full Cost.
\HP sent me a dead designed notebook computer called DV7-1000z same the usbal dead design issues. all of there notebooks comes with the worlds worst O.S. on the market. Windows Vista.
Micorosft main O.S. to kill poeples computers. well to tell the real data. HP dose not need to do this evel work for them. HP dose it for the all mighty constituion rights.
Microosft dose take heavy amout of the blame for this issue. However HP started it from the start. Still the DV7-1000z also main objective is the Windows Vista and the hardsware simply makes a dead computer run dead. well cannot access the internet. Unable to install sofrware and runn it beucase I did not order the software from HP. So they blacked it. the information was gaven to me from the corp level of HP. over a arument on the phone.

Hewlett Packard dose argue and fignt over the phone. Not a way to treat the tax paying consumers. when I pay for something. I want it to work. Not design to spy on my Visa card, bank ccount,Persional ID, who I work for. who I am shopping with. Not of there busiess to do so. never the less due to the due to the freedom of rights. HP can do what ever they please.
and the Federal Goverment of the United States of America dose use Hp servies to spy on who ever the Federal govement wants to do.
did you follow the special report from CNBC reguarding big corperation ripping off peoples ID? Hewlett packard was on this report on there Lazer Printers. printing out a code in yellow dots on the paper. it canss what the document is. then Hewlett Packard gets all the documents and sells it to big corperation. The bigest customer I think is the US Federal Govermentto help out in some of there privet objective. want to keep a eye on some one.

Hewlett packard phone support realy stinks. Hewlett pckard killed my account. Buecase I did not follow there rules and regulations. Ok Fine. building black market computers. selling in on the market. ripping off consumers and the consumers do not have the right to ask quetions on the subject? Hell I paid for it. I demand the service I need. if not. Hewlett packard dose not follow instutctions from the consumers. I am one consumer. when I told them them not do build dead computers for a living. build more and more and more. One other thing.
when I tell Hewlett Packard to give me back the money.. there excuse is its too old. why its too old? HP dose not do anything. Waste my time and money. to enforce the all sales are final.
I had persioal taken the mater to the US Goverment Atterney General office. I filed many suck reports on many charges I am placing agisnt Hewlett Packard. so far I have to hire my own atterney. Gee wis Hewlett Packaerd paid money to the Federal Goverment in order to have black market protection from the Federl Govmerment. the mail I have everty thime I file a report ends up with hire my own atterney. never send a federal agient to shut Heewlett packard down. Never both to ask me to look my my notebook computers and see for them selfs The Federal Goverment must learn about why I am doing my reports. lazy work form Federal goverment atterneys. come on. I got email from the US goverment not to keep filing new reports on Hewlett packard. I got snail mail demanding me to do the same thing. Not to file reports. Go to my privet atterney.

Hewlett packard prodcution line is bad for the envirement. using not save production in China. in the USA its not allowed to use those hazard products however in China there is no law o hazard products.
I do not recomand Hewlett packard to any consumers. If you want my dead computers to prove it. if any one wants one can buy my dead computers 1,200.00 each Full cost.
if you want soemthing to use in court. some one with money wants to take down Hewlett packard can easy send me a message.
I will be more then happy to support any one that is willing to take down Hewlwett packard. Note I do not have the money to dotate to a product like that. however I will be more then willing to sell my dead computers to any one is willing to take on Hewlett packard.

I have been very pleased with this laptop. I knew what I was getting when I ordered it. This is not a laptop to travel or commute frequently with due to its size and weight. But easy enough for me to haul around the house or to the local wifi spots. Plenty of speed and power to run my apps. Love the picture and sound quality when watching DVDs.

Only gripe probably has more to do with Vista than HP. My old Dell running XP took under a minute to wake up from sleep. This beast takes a lot longer. This is ok when I can take the dog out and make tea while it's starting up in the morning. But it's a pain if you just want to check the weather or movie times. Guess I'll have to use my phone for fast web access.

I bought this notebook in the middle of November 2008. I spent several months trying to find a 17-inch laptop within my budget. I looked at all the major (and some minor) brands, and this was the best value for money. I am a software engineer, website developer, graphic designer, amateur musician, and gamer. I use the notebook for all these things, and this is the perspective from which I will write this review.

PROS:
Good value for money. Just look at the specs then look at the price.

Lots of memory. It comes with 4GB of memory installed and is upgradable to 8GB.

The screen is bright and crisp. It isn't too glossy like other machines where you can see the waves across the screen used for diffusing the glare.

Good battery life for it's class. When performing basic functions that are not graphics intensive, such as browsing the internet, creating documents, etc I get up to 3 hours battery life. If I'm playing a graphics intensive game I get about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Media Remote. I don't use this most of the time. But it comes in handy if I want to control music or movies in Windows Media Player or iTunes from a distance.

Built in microphones are super sensitive.

...so are the touch sensitive buttons. They work as desired.

It's a very beautiful machine. Probably too beautiful. You may get obsessed with keeping it looking shiny, or just totally give up like me.

Enough ports to keep you connected to all your peripherals, and bluetooth to connect to other peripherals wirelessly.

Best speakers I've ever heard on a laptop. That being said, they're still just laptop speakers. The subwoofer produces enough bass to be noticable, which is more than I can say for many other laptop speakers. They are also really loud. If you are watching a movie, you won't need to attach them to external speakers to get good volume.

I can play most games on the highest settings. There are only very view games that I can only play on the next-to-highest settings. There is zero delay when manipulating even extremely large vector graphics in my graphic design software.

I have never run out of memory. For the first time in my life I can truly ignore memory. I open as much applications as I want. Of course, memory is still finite. But I routinely have my browser open, while a virus scan is running in the background, my instant messaging programs open along with other utilities, and playing a graphic intensive game, plus it's running Vista Premium (memory hog). And if the day ever comes when I need more memory, I can double the memory if I wish.

When using music production software like FL Studio or Pro Tools. I get no latency with the sound.

CONS:

The screen is very sensitive to grease and dust. It seems to scratch easily. I am afraid to clean of the screen with ordinary materials because of this. So my screen stays smudgy until I can get some screen cleaner.

There is no direct microphone to speaker output with this sound card and it's drivers (and currently no driver updates that solve this). So you cannot rout you're mic through is if you plan to do some DJ-ing, for example. Also this means that I cannot use it to amplify my guitar as I do with my desktop computer. And programs that do facilitate direct mic to speaker output usually cannot operate without latency. This was a big disappointment for me.

'Dual Independent Headphones' are simply just two headphone jacks with a fancy name. Being able to plug in two headphones or have two outputs is cool. But the word 'Independent' misled me to believe that I could have separate sounds go through each of the jacks - for example, I could have Media Player play through one, while have iTunes play through the other. But I can't.

Hard drive makes horrible clicking noise sometimes. It isn't loud, or noticeable if playing sound from the notebook. But the hard drive should be silent - which it is most of the time - but I find that sometimes, especially after running the notebook for long hours, the hard drive starts to make a clicking noise.

The keyboard isn't backlit. Also, the contrast between the letters on the keys and the colours of the keys may not be sufficient with the glare coming from the screen, or if you have poor eyesight, or are using the laptop in dim light.

It's hard to get a second 320GB hard drive (with mounting bracket) or 4GB memory cards from HP. The last time I checked was about January of this year. However you can get the 320GB hard drive, and get the mounting bracket (required to install it in the second hard drive slot) from a third party vendor.

That's all I have to say for now. Hope this was helpful.

It is amazing. It's my first notebook and I really love it.
But, I think HP should bring this spectacular product with a better operative system. The Vista Premium is incredible slow so I had to change it.