HP DV7T quick review

Hey guys, just bought an HP DV7T notebook, and thought I would post my initial thoughts and impressions of it for anyone interested.

DISCLAIMER! These are my own thoughts and opinions, anyone interested should check out the notebook first to see if it is what they want.

HP DV7T 2044CA Specs:

Espresso Black colour
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64 bit
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2.0GHz processor
4GB DDR2 memory
320GB 5400RPM hard drive
Lightscribe optical drive
ATI Radeon Mobility 4650 graphics card
17.3” glossy widescreen display (1600x900)
Intel Wifi 5100 A/B/G/N wireless card
Bluetooth, Webcam, included remote
8 cell battery

I bought this notebook as a desktop replacement, for entertainment (music, movies, games), photo & video editing, and general computer stuff like websurfing & word usage.

Size/Weight:

Its pretty big. Not the kind of notebook you want to travel a lot with, or bring out on a plane, or bring to a cafe often. But as a desktop replacement, where it mostly sits in one place, the size is great. Not sure on weight, but it is surprisingly light.

Screen:

Very nice. Clear, colours are nice; contrast is nice, nothing to complain about there. Viewing angles are decent, considering it’s an LCD screen. I really enjoy the widescreen format, and the resolution is great. Any higher resolution would be hard on my eyes I think, and anything lower wouldn’t be as nice for photo editing.

Keyboard:

It’s ok. Not bad by any means, but keys have a kind of springiness to them, and click and clatter a bit more than I would prefer. But not bad enough to be a deal breaker, not for me anyways. Full number pad is nice. The touchpad is very glossy, so it takes some getting use to. But after that it is fine. Touch sensitive buttons above the keyboard aren’t very good, slow to react and computer makes a chattering noise after they are pressed.

Sound:

Sound is decent, it has Altec Lansing speakers with a subwoofer underneath. Maybe not good enough for a serious audiophile, but for me, great sound. I usually use headphones anyways.

Ports:

Left side; 1 VGA, 1 docking station port, 1 LAN, 1 HDMI, 1 USB/E-sata, 1 USB, 1 Firewire, Memory card slot, Express card slot with remote.

Right side; Power port, 1 Kensington lock slot, 1 Modem, 2 USB, Optical drive.

Front; 1 Input port, 2 Output (headphone) ports.

Back; No ports.

Performance:

Alright, I don’t have any synthetic benchmark programs, so this is just a general average guy kind of review. As far as I can tell, it is plenty fast for everything I need to do. Websurfing is fast, multi-tasking is fast, does everything I need it to do. Considering its T6400, 2.0GHz processor, power/speed freaks should probably look elsewhere, but for normal people, it is plenty fast.

Gaming: I only have the Crysis demo on it so far, so I can only use that for benchmarking. Don’t have FRAPS either, so this is just a general review based on what regular people would want.

When I first booted it up, it ran it at 1600x900 res, everything on medium except for object quality on high. Ran fairly well, some stuttering. Changed resolution to 1280x720 (720p) and everything ran buttery smooth. I then changed settings to 1280x720, everything very high. Ran fairly well, some stuttering so not the most enjoyable. Changed settings to 1280x720, everything on high, runs buttery smooth and looks amazing. Even on medium Crysis looks great. So for people who want to game but don’t want or need the HIGHEST quality settings and resolution, rest assured that even at 720p, medium settings Crysis looks great.

So my technical observation is that the ATI Mobility Radeon 4650 can play Crysis at 1280x720, high settings smoothly at least. I still need to play around with settings to see if I can raise some settings to very high and still keep the FPS smooth.

Battery:

Fully charged at 100%, on High Performance battery settings, just surfing the net and writing some word documents, it lasted 2.5 hours before hitting the 10% warning. Not bad at all for a 17.3” DTR. This is with the 8 cell battery.

Noise & Heat:

Alright, it isn’t the quietest notebook. The fan always runs, usually at low speed which isn’t loud but there is a certain amount of noise from air being pushed out. When doing anything intensive, fan goes on high speed and while there is no fan motor noise, the rush of air is pretty noisy. For comparison, the Dell Studio 17 with same processor but Intel X4500 runs much quieter.

Heat is fine though, I am impressed. Even after gaming with Crysis for an hour, not much heat at all. Just surfing will keep heat levels to pretty much cool temperatures. Using it on your lap while gaming will bring about some heat, but nothing that is uncomfortable.

Overall, I thought I would just post this to let people know what to expect from this notebook, from an average guy point of view.

-Krait

 

Thanks for your quick review!

BTW, you should be able to turn off that click noise for the touch buttons in BIOS.

 

Thanks for the review man. I am going to buy a dv7t also. I use to have one but it was a older one I think, It had like a bronze diamond patern for the design. t6400 is very very fast IMO. And the Wireless card built it makes interent browsing ultra fast.

 

pics!!!!!!!!!

 

Ha, I knew someone would want pics. Don't have any, but will try to upload some next week or two. I just bought a Nikon D90/18-200 combo, still playing around with that.

The Espresso black colour looks good. Everything is black, keyboard, keys, palmrest, cover, everything except the chrome touchpad and touchpad buttons, and some chrome trim around the edges.

-Krait

 

LOL T6400 is slow... compared to T9400 and i find T9400 slow.. You should have got a quad core...

 

Not Slow... But not fast either.
Midrange.

 

t6400 is not good.
if u play GTA4 i think that wouldn't be fine with T6400

 

? I never said I wanted anything other than the T6400, I EXPLICITLY SAID that speed freaks should look elsewhere, but for MOST people the T6400 is fine. I have no need for quad core, nor am I a huge gamer, so enough with the silly game bashing.

UPDATE: Motherboard fried, returned it.

 

My mam got a similar setup, but the processor is 2.4 GHZ.

I have to say for 1200€, I was very impressed with the build quality, hardware and even I/O it came with.