List Price: $799.00
Sale Price: $778.86
Today's Bonus: 3% Off
This laptop made me appreciate my three year old Lenovo nonThinkpad z560. I wish I could buy a new one at its current market value which is about half the price of this HP. There really was no bloatware with this HP so I have no idea what those negative reviews all over Amazon are talking about. I was really worried about buying one of only two American laptop brands left based on those reviews. I didn't find this to be shoddily built at all BUT it is peculiar. The wifi bars are never full, usually at half full but there hasn't been any delay in loading pages so that is mystifying. Is it PRETENDING to be slow?
This is not a good keyboard for gaming with very small arrow keys but I installed the started edition of WOW to test out the graphics and it is fine. This is definitely a laptop for work and it has an AMAZINGLY irritating requirement that you hit the Return key if you wish to "click" on a link when browsing the internet. I'm amazed that something so annoying was actually designed into the system it's like something out of Neil Gaiman's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch.
Acer Aspire NX.V6ZAA.010;TMP453-M-6696 15.6-Inch Laptop has the exact same processor, same hard drive but is one hundred dollars cheaper because it is only expandable up to 8gb whereas this one goes up to 16 gb. I do just fine browsing the web on a 1gb Thinkpad.
The upside is that you are Buying American. Acer is Taiwanese and one hundred dollars cheaper. IBM/Lenovo's THINKPAD is fifty dolllars cheaper BUT since 2012, Thinkpads have been made in Japan and they still haven't gotten their story straight about how dangerous/prevalent is the Fukushima radiation.
Check with Crucial or Corsair to determine which RAM set is right for the laptop e.g. Crucial Technology 16GB (2 X 8GB) 204-Pin SODIMM, DDR3 1600 PC3-12800 Memory Module Kit CT2KIT102464BF160B.
This is the B series viz. 6570b and HP ProBook D8E70UT 15.6' LED Notebook Intel Core i5 i5-3230M 2.60 GHz Tungsten seems to be the same build but five dollars MORE because the Windows 8 Pro has not exercised the downgrade rights to Windows 7 Pro that's what it looks like from the HP comparison page.
ETA 9/24/13: Laptops aren't shipped in anything more than original packaging anymore. One of the stickers on this HP's box states:
"This system is preinstalled with Windows 7 Pro software and also comes with a license and media for Windows 8 Pro software. You may only use one version of the Windows software at a time. Switching between versions will require you to uninstall one version and install the other version."
and inside the box, I found five discs in sealed(!) white paper sleeves viz.:
(1) Operating System DVD Windows 7 Professional SP1 32-bit version
(2) Operating System DVD Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit version
(3) Application and Driver Recovery DVD for Windows 7
(4) Operating System DVD Windows 8 Pro[sic] 64-bit version
(5) Application and Driver Recovery DVD for Windows 8
And that feels like Christmas because if I had ordered a laptop from Dell, they would have charged me a few dollars for recovery disks and they wouldn't have given me disc copies of the OS. That's NICE of HP.
According to the sticker on the box, this laptop was made in Chongqing (Sichuan) China home of Kung Pao Chicken, long spouted teapots and much more. The address for returns is in Lavergne, Tennessee which is also the home to Taro Aso's Firestone/Bridgestone. This made me feel better about not buying the more popular, better reviewed Acer because I feel that if Corporate Headquarters is culturally American than the customer service/repair outpost is also American than it feels more coordinated.
The documentation in the box consists of Windows 8 installation instructions and ziploc bag containing an advisement that MMC and xD media cards are not supported by this device, a foldout of notebook accessories, HP worldwide telephone numbers and simple setup instructions (graphic) on glossy paper which do not show an HDMI port which may necessitate the purchase of a USB 3.0 to hdmi adaptor in order to screen the laptop on a bigger screen tv. My three year old Lenovo has an HDMI port and I could have sworn when I was researching this laptop that this had an HDMI.
HP customer support is a nonevent like most of them except Dell. No one answered my weeks old prepurchase email questions but I have never really had any luck with pc support in the nearly 20 years of owning PCs.
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