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HP (Hewlett-Packard) Pavilion dv8305us Notebook (1.8GHz AMD Turion 64 Mobile ML-34, 512MB DDR, 80GB, DVD±RW DL, Windows XP Media Center, 17" TFT - MPN: EZ579UA)
Description: The HP Pavilion dv8305us offers desktop capabilities combined with the mobility of a notebook. Designed for portable digital entertainment and powerful computing, its extra-large 17" widescreen BriteView display, AMD Turion 64 Mobile Techno.... Read More Description: The HP Pavilion dv8305us offers desktop capabilities combined with the mobility of a notebook. Designed for portable digital entertainment and powerful computing, its extra-large 17" widescreen BriteView display, AMD Turion 64 Mobile Technology, high-speed wireless, Super-Multi DVD burner and memory card reader let you handle today's media and applications with ease.The LightScribe™ Super-Multi DVD±RW drive lets you burn and play CDs and DVDs, including DVD-RAM and Double Layer DVDs, with a capacity of 8.5GB per disc. The LightScribe feature lets you etch silkscreen-quality labels (grayscale text and graphics) onto discs using the drive itself: after burning content, just flip the disc over in the drive to burn the label. Labeling feature requires LightScribe-compatible media, sold separately.The 6-in-1 memory card reader is compatible with these flash memory formats: Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, SmartMedia and xD-Picture Card.HP QuickPlay lets you play music CDs and movie DVDs within seconds after power turn-on, without booting the operating system. Control playback settings from up to 10 feet away with the included HP mobile remote control, which stores conveniently in the PC Card slot. Minimize |
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| Date Reviewed: 10/01/2007 |
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Strengths: : Large, bright display. Full-sized keyboard with number pad. Not as bulky as some other 17-inch laptops.
Weaknesses: Keyboard is not the best. Needs more memory!
Summary: I’ve had this laptop for over six months. Overall, it’s a decent machine. The processor is good enough for average users (as opposed to the dual-core processors that are now the norm). This model comes with 512MB of RAM and it was noticeably slow until I upgraded it to 1 Gig. The screen is nice and bright. The resolution is 1440x900, which should be good for the average user. The biggest problem I have is with the keyboard. The keys are not very responsive and occasionally it will not register characters that I pressed. I have gotten used to the keyboard, but it is not as comfortable having to press the keys more deliberately. As with most 17-inch laptops, this is not extremely portable. It is not something that you would want to carry around a lot due to its size and weight. I find that the bottom of the laptop does get uncomfortably warm if you rest it in your lap for more than 15 or 20 minutes.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/04/2007 |
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Strengths: excellent and bright 17" wide screen, speedy processor, adequate hard drive, keyboard+number pad, no heating issues, excellent customer service
Weaknesses: 512MB of memory is not enough for moderate to high multitasking. keyboard keys
Summary: I've had this laptop for 4 months and it is still in excellent working condition. The large 17" widescreen is very bright and clear and the color accuracy is excellent -- great for watching movies. It also has a glossy protective coat, so touching your screen does not damage it. The 64-bit Turion processor + Radeon Xpress 200M is also great for a power laptop that also consumes very little energy. For regular internet browsing and word processing, it only uses 23W of electricity. The battery lasts 2-3 hours, even when watching movies. I've finished whole 2-hour movies and still had 30% battery power left. This laptop is also powerful enough for my Photoshopping and gaming. In Counter-Strike, I get at least 60-70 fps. However, the included 512MB of memory only barely adequate for your gaming or professional photo-editing or moderate to heavy multitasking. I would strongly suggest upgrading one of the 2 256MB modules with a 1GB module, which can be obtained for about $100. Even a 512MB module would show significant gains. I have about 9 windows open right now, using 720MB of memory. Please note: since there are only 2 DIMM slots, you must take out one of the modules to install a larger one.
The 80GB hard drive is adequate for my purposes. (I have a lot of external drives to store data). The DVD burner can also burn dual layer and lightscribe, although I've never used either feature. Other features I like: keyboard layout has room for a number pad, blue glowing LED lights look nice, excellent heat dissipation (I usually leave my laptop on 24/7 with about 50% CPU utilization overnight, and it's not extremely hot in the morning). Some features I do not like: glossy black finish shows fingerprints easily and silver laptop surface scratches easily when carried around daily in a bag, keyboard key response is firm and easy to type on. However, I did have an incident where the left Ctrl button became a little sticky and I ended up breaking it when trying to fix it. Luckily, they have excellent customer service and support. They shipped me a box so I could send in the laptop for repair. When my laptop arrived at their repair center, they shipped it back out to me the same day. Everything was covered under warranty.
Overall, an excellent laptop for a great price.
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| Date Reviewed: 01/04/2007 |
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 Pretty and inspires envy, but rotten at the core. Strengths: Beautiful, huge display.
Inspires "Nice laptop" comments from strangers.
Great for simple games or word processing with two pages side by side for easy editing.
Built-in 9-key pad.
Weaknesses: KEYBOARD PROBLEMS.
On the big & heavy side.
Battery doesn't last long. Maybe an hour.
KEYBOARD PROBLEMS.
The silver paint on the keypad wore off in about a week.
Did I mention KEYBOARD PROBLEMS?
Summary: My own keyboard problems are with dropped characters, random capitalization errors and an extremely sensitive touch-pad. Typing along at a reasonable pace, the keypad will think I double-tapped it, it will select a word or line, and before I've reacted Ive typed over it!
Basically, any typing-based use of this computer requires frequent corrections. Apparently this entire series is plagued by keyboard errors. I don't know what PriceGrabber_com will think of this, but check out notebookreview_com and search on "dv8000".
The silver paint on the keypad wore off in about a week. That made it look used when it should have looked new.
I wish I had returned it right away, but I was told that there was a break-in period and that the problems would go away with use. While the touch-pad has calmed down somewhat, it is an ongoing problem.
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| Date Reviewed: 09/25/2006 |
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Strengths: Large Widescreen minitor, remote control and decent price
Weaknesses: none
Summary: I used it for 1 week after I ordered it and find it is solid build. The 17" LCD monitor is bright and present sharp pictures. DVDRW is lightscribe so that I can sketch title on the back of CD or DVD. The remote control is very useful when I watch movies. The laptop is quiet and only warm when I use it so there is no hot problems which I encountered in other laptops. The AMD turion processor has low power loss. Strongly recommend it!
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