HP dv7t Select Edition Series

Guys just ordered the newly launched(as in on-sale) HP dv7t Select Edition Series Base price: $850

Configured it as:

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Quad Core processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz
$100 OFF! 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
[For Dual Core Processors only] 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5650 switchable graphics
17.3" diagonal HD+ High-Definition HP LED BrightView Infinity Widescreen Display (1600 x 900)
SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
[For BrightView Infinity Display] HP TrueVision Webcam + Fingerprint Reader + Digital Microphone
Intel Wireless-N Card
Full-size island-style keyboard with integrated numeric keypad
9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (over-sized)
Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Bold showing the customization from base spec.

Price: $1530

After Bing Cash Back(25%) $1147

 

Dam that is a steal with that BCB. Nice buy.

 

Thanks L3vi.

This new iteration seems to be a re-design rather than a reskin from the Gen-3 DV7.

The hinge design seems different while the chassis design seems to be a evolution.

Gen-3 DV7:


Geb-4 DV-7


image source: official HP release.

The twin display latches as opposed to the single long latch for the Gen3 model and the absence of physical trackpad buttons seems to be the main differences in terms of chassis design.

Beats audio seems to be a definite plus-cant find any review of the Dv7 with the same.But stand alone review of the Beats audio systems seems to give the impression of an excellent if not one of the better sounding laptop ausio solutions.
Choose the 9 cell(oversize) battery because of the added advantage of the same elevating the laptop above the surface of use and thus giving better cooling-this is my take on the same-do you guys have any insights on the same?

 

One day I had a dv7t Quad Edition configuration saved on the HP site, next day... it was no longer available.

There are a number of cosmetic and hardware differences with the Select Edition. The dv6tSE has a touchscreen option, for what that is worth. I have a hard enough time as it is keeping my display clean and free of fingerprints. I also noticed that a TV Tuner is not currently an option in the configurator. I use my current HP laptop for recording OTA HD TV a lot. I definitely prefer an integrated or an express card tuner rather than a USB dongle sticking out getting in the way waiting to get knocked around. Price seems a little higher the previous model comparably equipped, but that is sure to change.

 

I am very interested in finding out if the screen on this new version is any better than the horrible screen on my DV7T Quad series machine. The vertical viewing angle is VERY narrow on my Quad and makes acurate photo editing very difficult. It is the worst LCD I've ever used by far. I'm hoping this new version is better.

 

Thats surprising, had seen a few DV7's and thought the screens to be A-OK.

Or is it that the Quad edition series comes with a different screen?(unlikely).

Anyways, fingers crossed, shipping date is still a couple of days away.

 

The impression I got from the DV7T Quad Series Owners Lounge was that the displays on the dv7t was not as good as previous dv7 models.

 

HP now provides a Blue Ray ROM as a free upgrade to the DV7's-great !!

Will the same be automatically installed in systems that are yet to be shipped?

 

Well guys my order seems to have shipped today.

Had ordered on 19th May around 8:30AM(with the Bing CB) and the ship date then was 1st June.

As the guys who have ordered Envy 17's have been reporting-there was some delay.Anyway the date of arrival has been updated to 9th June(from 4th June before).

Any idea if the same will arrive sooner?

The waiting is killing me!

There is a 50$ cut on the DV-7 price by the way.

 

Amazon has come out with a good deal on a pre-configured DV7.

This is the HP-DV7t-4080us(specs):

Product Features

Intel Core i7-720QM processor 1.60GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.80 GHz; 6GB DDR3 System Memory
17.3 inch diagonal HP BrightView HD+ LED Display (1600 x 900); ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with dedicated 1GB DDR3
Brushed aluminum finish with the stream design in argento; HP TrueVision Webcam with integrated digital microphone
Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector); Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n WLAN
4 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0, 4th port shared with eSATA; 1 HDMI; 1 eSATA + USB 2.0; 1 VGA (15-pin) ; 1 RJ -45 (LAN)
Processor, Memory, and Motherboard
Processor: 2.8 hertz Intel Core i7
Memory Slots: 2
Hard Drive
Size: 1000 GB
Manufacturer: SATA
Speed: 7200.0 rpm
Graphics and Display
Graphics RAM: 1024.0 MB


At 1300$ without tax and free shipping this might be an equivalent deal if not better deal than the current 25% BCB.

The presence of 1TB of HD space is note worthy.What the web-page does not specify is the battery size,bluetooth and the inclusion of the 'infinity' display.

Edit: Its a 9 cell battery and that makes the deal quite sweet!

 

The DV7 had shipped after a bit of delay and arrived on the 9th of this month.

Here is an overview of the same:


Initial Impressions:

-expected it to be quite large, it is but the stretched screen length seems to compensate some of the bulk.(comparison to a 6 year old Acer-14")
-its quite slender for the power that it packs.
-metal body is a definite plus-pictures does not do justice to the design.
-'argento' finish is NOT 'pink'-period.
-metal dual hinge is a definite plus but the same is quite a bit stiff-hope this decreases as the use increases.
-chassis seems to be a copy of the Envy-17-vent and port location seems to be similar.(Envy owners can give insights on the significance of magnesium in the body).

Design:

-does not break new ground(like the G73)-quite restrained-wont look out of place in a board room.

-detailing is something else-the etched design and the simple but significant variation in use of material is great-a case in point is the chrome ring around the track pad.

Built:

-metal casing gives a good impression of built at first glance.
-hinges are rock solid-there is no flex to the screen.

-the disc bay is not well fitting-especially on the underside and as the laptop is lifted up, on gets the feeling as if the bay will slide open.
-the illuminated HP log looks cool-but the finishing could be better.

-AC adapter pin has a very fragile looking central charging element-have to be quite careful not to break the same!

Screen:

-excellent viewing angles in the horizontal plane-very good angles in the vertical plane.
-brightness is great and darks are really contrasted well.
-suspect a bit of backlight bleed-guess one has to accept the same on a consumer option like the DV7.
-resolution at 1600x900 is great but pales in comparison to the 1080 Envy screen-but the rewards will be in a less taxed GPU.
-color gamut seems to be one of the best i have seen so far.

-infinity display(at 50$ option) seems to be eye candy-but am a sucker for the same!

Keyboard:


-first twist with the chic let keyboard and its a thumbs up!
-key actuation and springing is spot on.
-did not encounter significant keyboard flex, there is some-especially in the left lower corner near the 'windows' keys-this is in all practical terms-insignificant.
-lack of backlighting even as an option is sad.
-up and down arrow keys are a disappointment.

Trackpad:


-huge
-sensitive
-dual gestures work a charm
-buttons lack enough tactile feedback-not bothered as i always use a mouse.

Undersurface:

-single large opening to access the RAM and HDD.

-Subwoofer positioning is on the right side-this causes a light lateral orientation-adjustment of the balance of the speakers cures this.

Battery:


-9 cell battery was chosen to lift the laptop up to aid air circulation than anything else!

-has indicator lights to show remaining charge without switching on the laptop-nice.

Powerbrick:

-huge!(this is the 120W unit for core i7)
-length of wire from the brick to the laptop seems to be a little short-needing to place the brick closer to the laptop(this is a personal issue).

Detailed review coming up!

 

Looks great. It seems like HP put a lot into these new dv series laptops, especially when it comes to build quality.

 

yeah they did.

kinda nice. still if I went for a dv series it'd be the dv6t:se.

 

Did you order the dv7 with two hard disks?
If not, is it possible to install a second one right away or do you need an additional hdd caddy-kit-or-something-like-that?

If you don't feel okay opening your laptop to check, that's fine. I'm just giving this question a shot, because customer support here in Europe is far from being smart. They didn't even understood my question...

Superb first review by the way! Rep+ !

 

Great Pictures....I am waiting for your complete review.
Thanks

 

Thanks c-mattic.

No, i did not order with two drives, but can answer your question.

There is no bracket/caddy for the 2nd drive.Will be attempting to install a SSD soon-plan to buy the SATA cable but am planning on a DIY effort for the caddy.

 

When I saw the first pic I thought it was the Envy 17...lol

 

Thanks for the picture review.
I'm wondering what made you choose this over the envy 17? (not that I'm saying the envy 17 is better.)

 

Nice quick review man. Looking very nice. I'm surprised that the touchpad is working so well.

 

Hi, thanks for the initial impressions. Could you say something about the sound in the laptop? Does it sound good (ofc compared to other laptops) while playing music?

 

OK, it is not pink, it just looks sort of pink in your photos, which is odd because it looks nothing but silver/metalic on the HP site.

I wonder if it will run on a 90W adapter? In the configurator, an additional adapter is listed as 90W.

They must not be done rolling out the all the options. In the demo video they list a variety of options not currently in the configurator.
Different Colors (silver, black, and gold are shown)

Two different styles (HP imprint with pattern, and aluminium with engraved illustration, what ever that means)

Full HD and antiglare displays

Different audio options (Altec Lansing or Beats), depending apparently on the style chosen. Do you know which you got?

I am not sure I like not having real buttons for the touchpad (I do use it). I cannot imagine what dual gestures I would ever use, I already disable most touchpad bells and whistles, they just get in the way. Are you accidently touching with your palms?

The special keys at the top appear to be real keys instead of the touch keys that have been pretty standard on HPs in the past.

You said the keyboard was OK, but having those flat buttons seems like they would be hard to type on.

Looking forward to hearing more!

 

Good question!
Are the keys really flat, or slightly curved (like on Sony Vaio for example)? I have to say the curve in keys is barely visible with the eye, but you can feel it with your fingers on a sony vaio off course.
I'm curious if they did the same here. Hope so!

Thanks for the quick reply about the 2nd hdd caddy!

 

Well its not either-its Argento ! LOL

It will not, as the i7 core processor with the 5650 combo needs the 120W adapter.

The argento finish(from what i understand) would only be available with the select edition model.

This would be nice and if available would close the gap between the dv7 and the envy.

I have got the Beats edition-the Select Edition series only comes in the Beats flavor.Also all the models have the Altec Lansing speakers-its the software interface that differs.

I work mostly with photo-editing and pinch zooming and panning works great-but this as you point out is a personal thing.

Did not get the part pointing to the accident with the touchpad though!

The 'physical' keys are much better to the 'touch' supidity of the gen-3 dv7's.Trust me on this.

 

In case you didn't see it. I would appreciate if you could answer it. Cheers

 

My apologies for overlooking your query. Here is the low down on the audio:

-its loud. This the loudest laptop speakers i have come across.30% volume is more than enough to listen to from across a moderstely sized living room.
-does the beats option revolutionalise laptop sound? No! The subwoofer IS apparent, but i strongly feel that the 'beats' software is not that intutive in fine tuning the playback. The bands on the equalizer are quite few in number and i did not come across a separate control for the subwoofer.
-had a bit of cracking with an mp3 encoded above 320, will have to recheck the same.
-output through the headphone jack is excellent. The amp on this thing would be quite powerful.

So in short, the audio is NOT out of the world, but the system would definitely rank at the top of the 'better sounding laptop pile'.

 

How does the new dv7 handles heat?
The previous models did a bad job and heated quite much. Bit too much too my taste, like some recent Dell laptops.

How does the laptop feel (temperature) under moderate/heavy use?
Cool?
Slightly warm (still comfortable)?
Too warm (a.k.a. a nice little heater for in the winter )

I assume you never had a previous dv7 model to compare? (because of the nice little Acer standing aside in your review...)

 

Guys i have had the dv7 for about 10 days now. Wanted to post a complete review after getting to know the laptop a little more better.

But being a regular reader of the E17 thread, am frankly surprised by the amount of negative feedback regarding build quality and heat.

Posting a screen shot of my desktop.(do note the GPU and CPU temp read outs on the left upper corner).


Till now:

-no chassis creaks or panels coming undone or becoming ill fitting.

-am running speedfan for the sidebar gadget-its showing relatively low temps-have used RealTemp/HWMonitor and Everest Ultimate 5.5-all consistently show 55-68 Celsius.

During the screen shot, WMP/google were up and running.

-the left palm rest does become warm-but definitely not uncomfortable.

-plan to play some games before the next update.

-9cell battery is a recommended accessory for this laptop-gave nearly 2 hours of battery time with routine use(read browsing/yt videos/ software updates etc)

 

How's it going? Are you still liking this machine? Have you had a chance to do any gaming?

 

Who...when does an "official" thread for a certain model get created on this site? This Select Edition is very new, but I am surprised how little discussion/interest there seems to be.

 

I cant wait for mine to get here. I pretty much got the same specs as you put paid 1006 dollars for it, saved about 32% from original price.

 

I just ordered one of these, too. Not sure if this is the official thread or the DV7 quad core thread is the official thread.. I got the base model with i5 540, but added bluetooth and the infinity display.. $944 plus tax
edit: just want to thank you for the great pictures on page 1 and 2.. really helped me solidify my decision to buy this laptop

 

Has anyone tried charging an ipad from the usb ports on this sucker? Also, is it possible to update the video drivers from ati? or do we have to wait for hp to update them? because of the switchable graphics

 

I ordered one from Staples and can't wait to put it through its paces. It has the same specs except that it only has a 'standard' display and 'only' 4gb of memory. The price was right and decided to purchase one to use exclusively as a cheap gaming machine. I can't wait to report how well it holds up a couple months from now after heavy sessions of Left 4 Dead 2 and Starcraft 2!

edit: Just received in the mail today, but I'm still stuck at work.
I'll try and post some pics, videos and impressions over there weekend.

 

I've been tinkering around with the notebook for an hour or so now and here are some initial impressions.

+ Case feels solid. Fit and finish are great!
+ System looks very elegant
+ Screen is nice and bright with great viewing angle and a great resolution.
+ Bloatware is kept to a minimum.

= Speaker quality is lacking. Volume is great, but don't sound too good when set to low. Sounds really nice when turned up. Works great for video and music, but not so much for games.

- Keyboard buttons feel cheap and thin compared to my Macbook
- Trackpad takes some time to get used to as the buttons are integrated into the touch surface.
- System gets pretty hot during my quick gaming session. GPU temps are around 67C.

 

What is your ambient temperature?

 

What's ambient temperature? The idle temp of my notebook? The GPU seems to idle at around 54C. I'm using GPU-Z to check the temps right now. What program should I use to check CPU temps?

 

No the temperature of your room.

GPU-Z is okay.

If it was a game that pushed for your GPU 67C is nothing. In a room at 25C it should typically go to 80C.

 

Yeah, I was playing a game when it got that high. I'd say it's about 80F in my room right now. What's starting to bug me is that the notebook itself seems to get pretty hot under load.

 

If it's 100% load or around it , it is normal.

 

finally some activity in this thread.. looks like my laptop has a build date of july 22 and I chose free shipping so it won't be here for about 10 days.
bchreng I'm really glad you say the screen looks great with good viewing angles.. if you have a nice camera can you take some pics of it showing some high quality photos?

 

Sure. You mean take a picture of the system displaying high quality images? I'll try and take some and get them up tomorrow.

 

my laptop is scheduled to be delivered on july 22 so 2 days til I can take a bunch of pics.. anyone have any requests as far as close up pics go or what programs to have open on the screen when I take the pictures?
edit: woot, my laptop just departed alaska, should be here and on a delivery truck thursday morning

 

Hi guys, I am thinking of getting this notebook and stumbled upon this thread and am hoping you guys can help me decide. Has anyone tried any gaming so far?
I'm thinking of going for the i5 520m, any ideas on how it would perform for games like Battlefield 2 and MW2?

 

The only games I really play on this thing are L4D and Starcraft 2 (when the beta was still active). The i7 720 that I have is able to handle them well enough with medium-to-high settings. I think an i5 would be able to handle them just as well. I don't have any experience with BF2 or MW2 though. Here are some benchmarks from notebookcheck that might help you out.

 

You might want one of DV7's with HD5650

 

Hi fellow HP owners, I have a problem.

I bought a new Pavilion dv7-4053cl Entertainment Notebook from Costco two weeks ago and use it 8 hours a day for work. Yesterday when I left the computer open for a half hour and came back, the computer would not come out of hibernation mode. I did a hard restart and it worked fine after that.

Today the same thing happened, it wouldn't come out of hibernation mode, but now when I restart the computer it won't turn on. It makes a boot up sound, and the power button (white) and F11 and F12 buttons (red) are lit. But nothing else happens. If I try to start in safe mode by using F8 at start up nothing changes, the screen stays black. If I plug my phone into the computer it starts charging... it is on somehow but I can't make the screen show anything.

I can easily return it to cost-co for a new one, but I have my work database on this computer from the last 2 weeks that I very much need. Is there anything I can do?

 

I would just take the hard drive out of the laptop and plug it into another computer and copy your database to your other computer, then exchange or return the computer

 

My laptop arrived today core i5-540, 6gb ram, ati 5660, infinity display, bluetooth, 6 cell. Pics taken with my Canon S90 with zero manual tweaking in my horribly dimly lit room. I miss my T1i









http://a.imageshack.us/img23/9152/img0105jr.jpg

 

Nice pics uncola! Everytime I type, my fingers sort of brush against the trackpad and sometimes moves the cursor to a place where I don't want it to be. Any idea how to disable the trackpad via the keyboard?

 

Thanks! that was a useful link.