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HP Pavilion DV4-1140GO 14.1-Inch Notebook

Laptop made by HP Pavillion

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Multimedelightful

Dec 25, 2008

by arichards

Rating:

Wicked stuff:

1. Sleek looking, and although some parts are fingerprint magnets, the appearance is kinda cool with its mesh imprint finish and shiny touch pad. (It comes with a cleaning cloth for fingerprint removal)
2. The keyboard is gunmetal grey, and has a great feel to it when you're doing mundane stuff like typing or data entry.
3. If you're a mouse person, you can turn off the touch pad with one casual touch of a button.
4. Pretty lights! Unless of course you don't like drawing attention to yourself in darkened rooms. The multimedia control buttons light up, and so does the HP logo on the front.
5. Speaking of the multimedia buttons, these are touch buttons and very sensitive. The only thing is that there's no way of knowing your volume setting while you're fiddling with it.
6. Amazing webcam, with sharp high resolution images and a whole bundle of fun stuff to do with them. (Picture frames, special effects, avatars, filters, distortions and You-Tube uploading among others)
7. Oodles of ports and jacks! Every port (and jack) for a storm including 2 headphone (audio out) jacks; microphone jack; modem jack; TV antenna/Cable jack; 2 USB ports; eSATA/USB port; HDMI port; network jack; expansion port 3; external monitor port; security cable slot; digital media slot; ExpressCard slot.
8. Swappable bay for DVD or extra hard drive
9. Cute little remote control for multimedia which stores neatly in the ExpressCard slot
10. Comes with a full year's supply of Norton 2008. (I upgraded it to Norton 2009 anyway)
11. Doesn't include a whole bunch of stuff you don't need, so you start with a nice clean screen and recycle bin.
12. Comes with Vista (for those who like Vista)
13. It's geared for entertainment, so movies, music, TV and games are given top priority, and are easily controlled with the remote. The Quickplay feature gets you started with one button.
14. Picture quality is excellent - crisp and clean
15. Wifi and Bluetooth, plus HDMI to connect to your HD TV
16. Huge 320 GB hard drive to store all your music, pictures, videos and memories, et al
17. Digital media slot for easy reading of your camera's memory card
18. Parental controls

Maybe not so wicked stuff:

1. When you first turn it on, it is recommended that you grab a bunch of blank CDs to save the factory settings for posterity. Actually, you'd better make that DVDs, because while it only takes 2 DVD+/-R or 1 double layer DVD, you'll need 14 CD-Rs. This delays the starting up process a bit, especially when you don't happen to have a bunch of blanks available. A good feature is that you can pause at any point, and pick up later without starting all over again. You also have to remember where you're storing the recovery discs in the event that you need them at any time in the future.
2. The touch pad can be "sticky" depending on how moist your fingers are - sweaty fingers need not apply. It also holds fingerprints that you won't need CSI equipment to detect
3. The keys are hard to read in low light situations, and the screen in bright light situations. During the day the screen is so reflective that you see yourself most of the time. (Fine if you're narcissistic)
4. If you remove the protective plastic sticker info-thingy from the area around the touch pad, the wrist-rest section can be easily scratched by your watch band or other wrist wear when you're using the keyboard. On the other hand, if you leave it, it peels and looks ugly.
5. Comes with MS Works Standard, while most folk I know use Office. Doesn't take long to install Office though - about 10 minutes.
6. Comes with Vista (For those who don't like Vista)
7. Slightly heavy for its size, but sure as heck beats walking around with a 17 inch laptop.
8. Shuts down abruptly without warning when the battery is low. Sometimes it hangs up.
9. Testing the battery life on music (with HP recommended settings) gave only 1 hr 52 minutes of play time.
10. Depending on the type of music you're playing, it can sound tinny. Sound separation is good, and it's loud with lots of treble, but headphones or ear buds are required for best sound.
11. Slightly sluggish in launching programmes
12. Takes too long to hibernate.

Overall, this is an almost perfect little laptop for when you're on the go and suffering from separation anxiety for your multimedia hobby. It's not perfect, needing better speakers and battery life, and it would have been nice to get the recovery discs with the package, but for the price and versatility I'd definitely recommend it.

Amanda Richards

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About the reviewer

Amanda Richards (arichards)
Ranked #38

I write reviews for a hobby. Most of my reviews are short and to the point, on account of my short attention span. I try to make my reviews both informative and entertaining, and sometimes I succeed. … more

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14.1-inch Diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP Brightview Infinity Display, 1280 x 800 resolution
2.00 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5800 with 2MB L2 Cache
4096MB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm), 320GB (5400RPM) Hard Drive (SATA), Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (shared) with up to 1759MB Total Available Graphics Memory
LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support, Intel WiFi Link 5100AGN and Bluetooth
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium, dims in inches: 13.15 in (L) x 9.45 in (D) x 1.34 in approx., 5.18 lbs

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