HP Pavilion DV7T Review (LOTS OF PICTURES)

Oh thank goodness. I almost had a heartattack when I read it. pheww crisis averted. I'll get my laptop on my birthday.

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Ship date
Aug 12, 2008

Estimated delivery
Aug 15, 2008 by 10:30 AM

Destination
COLLEGE STATION, TX

Service type
IP Direct Distribution - Indirect Signature Required

Clearance detail

Weight
12.2 lbs.

Status
In transit

Date/Time

Activity

Location

Details


Aug 14, 2008 3:40 PM

Arrived at FedEx location

ANCHORAGE, AK

3:40 PM

In transit

ANCHORAGE, AK

3:38 PM

In transit

MEMPHIS, TN

2:05 PM

Departed FedEx location

MEMPHIS, TN

10:46 AM

Arrived at FedEx location

MEMPHIS, TN

2:53 AM

Departed FedEx location

INDIANAPOLIS, IN


2:00 AM

Int'l shipment release

INDIANAPOLIS, IN


Aug 13, 2008 2:21 PM

Departed FedEx location

ANCHORAGE, AK


1:07 PM

Arrived at FedEx location

ANCHORAGE, AK


9:33 PM

In transit

SHANGHAI CN


Aug 12, 2008 4:06 PM

Left FedEx origin facility

KUNSHAN CN


11:27 AM

Picked up

KUNSHAN CN

Package received after FedEx cutoff

something like that

 

Wow. Don't you love computer errors?

Thanks charon, just curious...

::wonders what it's like working in an HP sweatshop...::

 

No prob.
probably something like the that Simpson's episode with teh Krusty burger's toy factory (sweatshop). lol, jk. "more work! less whipping!"
on a more seriously note, I'm chinese and I get offended when people brand those factories as "sweatshops." Companies like HP and Dell have factories in Asian countries that provide jobs for thousands upon thousands of people. Just because pay isn't as good as same jobs in the US doesn't mean it's automatically bad. In fact the so called "sweatshops" pay their workers averge to higher than the domestic factories and often have better working conditions and benefits due to better company standards. So when people protest, it's like telling the workers that the good jobs are bad and they should go back to worse jobs. Sorry about the rant, just wanted to put my 2 cents in.

 

Interesting. 10:30 AM for delivery is a pretty specific time (to the 30 minute increment). I wonder how accurate that is. I'm showing delivery before noon tomorrow for mine and debating whether or not to take the morning off.

 

charon, I meant nothing by it.

They only make those jokes because of the conversion rate of money, at least something about it. It's just how stereotypes are born.

 

hey guys im goin to purchase the HP DV7T because of ur reviews and so i have some questions:

do you think the hdtv hybrid tuner is worth buying and would you recommend the 1680x1050 or 1440x900 resolution?

one more, which would be better a 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive or 320GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (160GB x 2)?

thanks guys!!!

 

so...bad news

I ordered mine (came out to be a little under $1500) aug 11. I then saw this commotion about the $400 off coupon after i had already bought it . So me and my pops call up HP like many of you did to ask about it. We are told that this coupon does not work but the lady said that she found another coupon that got the price down to $1000ish. So we thought we were getting a bargain! My dad confirms with her every spec to make sure they matched the $1500 one we ordered prior to. She says they're the same and we go ahead and order it and cancel the first order. So...i get a confirmation for the new order and ITS NOT THE SAME SPECIFICATIONS! It looked like the base configuration (2.0 ghz, 2 gb, etc.). So we call back and we get a new lady cause we couldn't get a hold of the other one and she says there's nothing they can do but cancel the newest order, which we did. So now we had $2500+ charged on our card and have to wait like 3-5 days to actually get refunded the charges. With school coming soon, i really need this computer ASAP so we had to use a new card to pay for the computer because our first card lacked the funds now b/c of the 2500 still on there.

So frustrating! In the end, we had to go through the order process all over again and now i have to wait even longer.

 

I don't know why. The tracking system still shows my computer in Anchorage AK. But if it's just a computer error, I already have someone at home to pick it up.

I know you're joking, hence my Simpson's counter-joke. I just wanted to clear out a point, it's been bugging me awhile especially with all the protestors of the Beijing olympics and all. Sorry if I sounded a bit snapy, it's not pointed at you or anyone here.

 

I ordered my DV7T on Monday & here was my rationale.

- I did not buy the hybrid tuner since the cable TV standards are changing (currntly working on a HD cable decoder standard in the US so you don't need a converter box in the future) & it would cost the same to buy a usb/express card tuner later. No matter what, you will have a cable of some type dangling from the side of your laptop so the built-in tuner was not worth the $100.
- I ordered the 1680x1050 since it was the highest res & by the reviews that I read, had a very clear picture. You can always adjust the icon size & text in Vista to make them larger.
- Personally, I went with the 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive. I don't think you will see a drastic difference in performance. Also, hard drives are easily upgradable, so you can always upgrade (maybe SSD) in the future. It wasn't worth the expense.

I hope this helps out!

 

Are people getting the TV Tuner? I'm torn over whether I really need it or whether it would even be a nice extra to have...

Thoughts...?

 

i ordered mine with the tv tuner simply to have every option they had available. but i have heard mixed reviews about it so i am not expecting some earth-shattering results with it.

it's just cool to have in case you want to record something and dont have a tivo or dvr or any of those devices - like me. i dont even watch tv but ordered it nonetheless...

i max'd out almost everything when i ordered mine except the processor, which i got the 2nd highest available. i regret not getting the 1st one... i was already spending 1800+ on it, what's another 100? :-D

I did notice though that a lot of people are not getting it. if you dig through this thread and a couple of others, where people listed their specs, I noticed that not many got the tuner.
- tsd

 

I'm waiting for my second DV7T to arrive sometime around August 20th. It's fully maxed out. I'll let you know how the TV Tuner and Blu-Ray play.

 

The blu-ray is good.

haha... dunno what else I could say about it.

 

Wooohooo!
My dv7t's here!
Unfortunately I have to go pick it up from FedEx after work since my at-home person didn't wake up for the delivery (at 9am).

 

Awesome to hear. charon make sure you post your review here so we can see how it works out for you.

 

Yea most definitely.
But you'll have to wait for a while.
I need to do backup, clean out bloatware first, and I can't do much tmrw since it's tax free wkend down in Texas so I have to go shopping for college stuff (probably pick up some games for the beast with the money returned by HP). But I'll get some benchmarks and stuff (C&C3 and Crysis if anyone's interested) posted plus pics if I figure out how it works. ^_^
btw, anyone have good benchmarking programs to recomend, 3dmark06 is obviously first, but I'd appreciate more suggestions for others.

 

charon - congrats!!!!!!!!!!! i wish my frickin' laptop was here already. im on these forums for support. l0l

 

I got my laptop!!!
Almost died doing it but totallly worth it!
Anyways, first empression: I think I'm in love.
I'm burning my recovery disks right now, and will eventually move onto bloatware deletion. It runs like a charm even with bloatware (4GB of ram helps too). I'll try to get some benchmarks and screens later this wk.

 

Happy Birthday and glad you like your laptop. My decision to take the half day paid off. Laptop arrived at 10AM and I was at work with my laptop shortly after. Nice to be able to feed DVDs and generate recovery disks while getting a few things done. Got great feedback on the laptop from my co-workers. This beast sure is pretty - clean lines especially with the Infinity display.

 

how about the battery life on the new DV7t?

 

The battery's pretty good. Mine lasted about 3 hrs during which I was surfing the net and watched youtube videos.
Wow, sooo much bloatware, I have 80+ processes at any given time and right now I'm using up 2.41gb of my 4 gb of ram to burn the recovery disks. As soon as I'm done with the disk burning I'm running Ccleaner.

 

Not to be mean or anything, but if you actually read the review you would know what I got for battery life lol

 

I've read your review. I was answering the post before mine. But the 3 hours was from my experience with it today.

 

It was directed to that guy, not you.

 

and what do you think about the build quality is it better than Gateway 7811FX??

 

Infamous22,

did you update your Nvidia driver using the official one from Nvidia's site, or did you use laptopvideo2go.com?

 

charon - quick question

im not sure if you got the infinity display or not... which one did you get and how is the screen looking? having issues with glare at all?

.... i have this gut feeling that the glare from the infinity is going to get to me... and im going to wind up returning my dv7t and ordering another one - with a few changes:

1) getting the 17" non-infinity display
2) getting the T9600 processor (the one i have coming in has the T9400)
3) getting dual 320 gig drives(the one i have coming in has a single 320gb drive)

thanks in advance,
- tsd

 

Dual 320GB HDDs.. Sounds intriguing

Do you really need that much CPU power, it wont affect gaming at all..

The Infinity view is overrated- I agree

 

^ i dont even play games, seriously. last time i played a game was in like 04 - no kidding.... but with my new laptop, i'd definitely start playing again.

i just wanted to spec a machine of my dreams and have it in front of me on my desk ;-D

the disk space i'll definitely use, although i know an external drive is far cheaper... i just want to be able to say that i have over 600 gigs of disk space.... on my laptop!

i know, all superficial reasons.... o well ;]


im wondering if i should just get this unit with the 320 gig drive and buy two 500 gig hitachi's and install them myself...... but some sites are reporting the hitachi is a little slow because of something relating to the number of platters........... so i duno....

like i said on another thread, i think - the last machine i bought was a $449 refurbished emachine in 2005 which I am still using til this day. back then, i didnt want a flashy machine. so the money i didnt spend then im putting towards this beast!
- tsd

 

Sorry you are having buyer's remorse. I've got the infinity display and on day 2. I'm working today in my office, with the blinds open resulting in major sidelight. I'm having no issues with glare. I've got the 1680x1050 Infinity display. I'm a software engineer and spend most of my life squinting at line after line of text. I have no complaints with the display.

Personally, I don't think you are going to notice a difference stepping from T9400 to T9600 with the same cache and FSB.

In regard to the dual drives, that would be nice and I debated it for some time. I wonder what running a second drive would do to the battery performance. I couldn't find any data on the impact...

 

Kya baat hai

Congrats and keep us updated with some pics when you get it lol

btw: I wish I lived ON times square JC is close enough tho =P

 

^ hhahahahahaha.... i'm pagal yaar, what can i say..... l0l.

michael - thanks for the insight. i'm going to bestbuy in a couple of hours to see and compare the displays (infinity and non-infinity) myself.

this is a desktop replacement for me so battery life w/2 drives isn't an issue really. i probably use the battery 5% of the time, if that...

 

With the specs you have no, it would be pretty pointless to send it all back just for those minor things.
Just get a cheap external drive or if you really feel the need, buy a new internal drive.
Dual drives = more heat btw.
-------------

Infamous22,

did you update your Nvidia driver using the official one from Nvidia's site, or did you use laptopvideo2go.com?

and have you tried using digital vibrance?

 

tsd,

I know what you're going through. It's the guilt of not getting the full upgrades. You'll be fine with the Infinity.

I know that when you get the new computer you're going to stare at it thinking, oh man I should have upgraded that. I've been there. The only way to make yourself happy is to give in to that. What other people say, probably won't affect your decision on wanting to get it. So just do it and be like me, a person with a weakness to sexy notebooks.

 

I usually wait for the official drivers and I don't think there are anymore updated ones since 175.53. The one on LaptopVideo2Go isn't official, but I will download and play with it anyways. I love playing on the edge of my seat.

 

I tried downloading the new 177.89 driver for the 9600m with the modded INF from LaptopVideo2, but it ended up messing up with the Vista Aero interface so I don't think it works completely yet.

 

I'm loving the infinity display right now. The glare isn't so bad, it's only obvious when there's a really bright light source behind you and when you go to a black screen you can probably check your hair. Otherwise it's great looking and I'm seeing the screen fine as I'm typing this on my dv7t.

 

I have a couple of friends who may buy the laptop just for THIS reason

 

lol...

sounds like a sweet anniversary present lol

 

Guys, for some strange reason, when I’m working on battery, in tray I don’t see time of battery life. Only percentage.

 

HP notebooks do not come with that as a feature. Download this program
http://www.mioplanet.com/products/batterymeter/

It has an accuracy percentage. Obviously the higher the accuracy is better. The meter works very nicely.

 

Hm, very strange, I thought that this is windows feature, not laptop manufacture.

 

They have never been included in any of the HP notebooks I used in the past.

 

I have a dv7t with two 320MB drives and a T9600 (2.8 GHz) processor. My battery performance runs about 3hrs.

 

Thanks! Assuming normal usage, your 2nd drive doesn't seem to make a significant impact on the battery.

 

My HP has 1 250GB HDD. If in the future I wanted to upgrade to dual drives, would they fit into mine?

just wondering

BTW, how much space does the backup partition take up?

 

I have not opened mine up yet but I was told the chassis is the same (drive bay exists). However, the caddy and cable are not included. So the space is there but you would need to order or find the hardware required to install the drive. That makes sense and it is the same situation with the Inspiron 1720. Co-workers of mine have either ordered the parts directly from Dell or from eBay and then picked up a drive from Newegg. In that case, I think the parts were $20 or $25.

 

As far as I know, dual drives are the only option with the DV7T.

And yes, you can always upgrade your drives with a bigger 2.5" SATA drive. You just have to put it into the bracket from the old one.

The backup partition is like 12GBs

 

Dual drives aren't the only option.
I ordered a 250GB HDD.


And thx for the partition info.

 

where can i buy the dv7t in the uk? i saw your price and was like $1,110 which is like £600.... the cheapest i can find in the uk is £900 and thats with 2GHZ processor

http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/s...151&langId=-1&searchTerms=5080362&Submit=GO+>

i rele taken a liking to this notebook and considering this or sony viao fw11e or samsung r700....but thinking maybe this is worth extra money...anywhere cheaper i can find in the uk?