dv6tqe 1080p vs dv7tqe 1600x900

I have a crappy display on the Vostro right now and that is one of the reasons I am upgrading. Not much of a gamer but do watch movies etc on my laptop. Main thing is that it shouldn't heat much because I do use it a lot on the sofa/bed. I don't anticipate travelling with it much, as I have a netbook for that.

Which one would you recommend:

HP Pavilion dv6t Select Edition customizable Notebook PC
2nd generation Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.5 hours of battery life +++
15.6" diagonal Full HD HP Anti-glare LED Display (1920 x 1080)
$958.99

OR

HP Pavilion dv7t Quad Edition customizable Notebook PC
2nd generation Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
640GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.25 hours of battery life +++
17.3" diagonal HD+ HP BrightView LED Display (1600 x 900)
$909.99

Also, is it worth upgrading to the 2GB graphics card?

Thanks!

 

I would go for the larger screen, simply based on that. It gets quite tiresome watching movies on a 15 inch laptop. You're not going to notice the difference between the two resolutions, 1600 x 900 are still lots of pixels to get the job done. In the old days 720p (1366x720) was considered high def, and still is, so the specs on the second one exceeded that. If you're wondering, all laptops are running progressive as apposed to interlaced. As a matter of fact I think you would be hard pressed to find any TV or monitor that has interlaced scanning.

I would save my money upgrading to 2 GB of video memory, if it's not too much you can include it if you ever plan to game, but even the most demanding game isn't going to make use of all that video RAM.

My biggest concern is the heat issue, HP laptop's were never cool running, when you use it in bed on the sofa or your lap, you will have to put something hard underneath it so as to not block the fan intake vent, the laptop pulls air in from the bottom and shoots it out the side. The same fan also cools the Video card as well as the processor, so it has to work pretty hard.
If you ever do game on it, a cooling mat will be a necessity.

If the one you choose has a Blu-ray player in it both will have fantastic picture quality, although the 1600 x 900 will be scaled down a bit from 1920 x 1080, but you will not see the difference.

Realistically you will probably get 1.5 to 2 hours of battery life on the 17 inch even with the LED back-light system.

 

Ok thanks, I ordered the dv7tqe!

 

Your advices are so wrong, if you bothered reading the topic or look at pics of the laptop you would know that new HPs take air from behind and blow it out from the side.
You're talking about last year generation of pavillions.

He's saying he's not gaming so he will stay on the Intel HD and it win't ever get hot on that, no chance.
Gaming does not require a cooling mat, it's very optionnal.

And he will probably get more than 2 hours of battery if he just watch movies on the Intel.