HP - 15.6" Laptop - 4GB Memory - 320GB Hard Drive

I bought this laptop because it was a great basic laptop for the price. I have a home computer that operates as mission control. I bought this laptop because I wanted a mobile computer for writing. For that it's fine. Getting used to Windows 8 is a challenge and I'm not wild about it, but I'm adjusting. The most frustrating part of the whole experience was downloading Microsoft Office. Because of the slow processing time, it took a long time to download. It caused the download to time out. I had to uninstall Office and reinstall it to get it working. This was only partly the computer's fault and mostly Microsoft's fault. Their support page is filled with complaints from users like me who have had troubles. Bottom line: If you want a computer to do a lot of things and perform well, do not buy this computer. You will have to spend more to get better performance. If, however, you want a nice basic computer for basic web-surfing and web-processing, this is a dandy little machine. Note: Attached product is not recommended by me, but is what I purchased.

Basic home use, for internet searches and e-mails, was painfully slow. Though any link in the chain (internet service, modem, router, computer ), can be the culprit, I pretty much narrowed down the issue to be our outdated desk top used and abused by my kids with file sharing etc. Although the desk top did still work, it was time to stop the waiting and buy something new. Good news is, searches and e-mails are quick as it should be, but Windows 8 is quite the departure from my experience. I'm still getting use to it, but must admit, there were some loud audible yelling when I first used it. Bottom-line, hardware fine, software, iffy.

This is my first laptop ever, so there isn't anything I have to compare it to. The PC itself I love. Keyboard and mouse are easy to transition to from a regular desktop. Screen size and brightness I rate 10/10. The audio and video capabilities are both up to par. I am still undecided about battery life yet, so no news on that. Otherwise the device itself is great and HP did a wonderful job. As for the other... Windows 8 has to be the worst OS ever. There is absolutely no functionality to it. It is constantly switching me from my desktop to the start menu without prompting. Skype closes without prompting. I had to download a new driver for the webcam to work from the Windows website. "Easy to use" is not a phrase that I would ever associate with Windows 8. It is basically a tablet layout on a PC and it was a horrible idea. The product gets a 3 star rating because of the Windows 8. I guess some people out there like the new OS, but I find it lacking. Still, this is a good buy if you are looking for a new laptop.

The HP 2000-2b43dx serves well as a second laptop, even as a desktop replacement, and is adequate for most tasks I have: word processing, presentations, web browsing, video viewing and email. The glossy screen has good resolution for an inexpensive laptop. The CPU trades power for longer battery life (I get about 5 or 6 hours). IMHO, Windows 8 is NOT user friendly on a full-sized laptop or desktop, but Classic Shell (http://www.classicshell.net/) or other add-on can bypass the Metro screen and is as usable as Windows 7 It did not come loaded with too much trial-ware and junk, but note that Metro live tiles use up internet bandwidth and should be turned off or removed if not used. For ~$270, I feel it is a good value.

I like this notebook for its size and convenience. It has all my basic needs covered. Battery life seems good so far , I got about 4 hours of music playing on a small iHome speaker. I mainly use this for home use and a little bit of work using MS Excel and so far everything has worked flawlessly. I love it's small size and its light weight. It does have an HDMI port which is nice. It would be nice to have a cd drive built in but I'm ok using a portable cd drive when i need it. Sound and video are not great but adequate. The one thing I don't like is the flaps covering the USB ports, they make connecting to those ports a chore and I just know I'm going to break one some day.

I bought this laptop as a gift for Mother's Day to replace an older XP laptop which had been running out of hard disk storage space and was starting to run slower and slower just doing normal things with Word and Internet viewing & printing. The old XP laptop now had also gotten very slow to boot up and shut down. The new laptop is definitely much faster at booting up and shutting down. The Internet browsing, after setting up my local Wi-Fi network, feels faster too. The price for this new laptop was actually less than what I had originally paid for the old XP laptop several years ago. The new laptop has more hard disk space and ram memory, so I can't complain about the price. The only negative I have so far with the new laptop is with the new Windows 8 OS. What a pain of a learning experience to set up because of the new "Start Windows" instead of the older "Start" button used in Win95-98-Me-XP-Vista. I had to default to the old Desktop window tab just figure out on how to do anything useful. Thank goodness for the Internet and a spare working PC to help bail me out.

Yes, I will get use to it, and one day I will appreciate the Windows 8 and all the fancy things, but I just needed to know how to shut down! I also wish that the number keypad was located on the side. I would like a class so I can appreciate all of it.

Slow internet sometimes, can't have too many tabs or projects open. Very easy to set up. Short battery life ~4hrs depending. Slowly getting faster. New to the new windows theme, but I've found it extremely convenient and the more I play around with it the more I get used to it and the easier it gets to use. Its really simple and user-friendly. I only use it for school and the occasional web-browsing. I've found [youtube] videos to be fairly slow and laggy. The camera isn't that great quality-wise. The keyboard is easy to use as the keys dont stick (I've found this to be a problem as I tend to type fairly hard) The speakers suck, I could be watching a video [on youtube] at 100% volume and step downstairs for a bit and not even realize I left my computer running. Not recommended for gamers or those with small children as it does lag and takes quite some time to load at times. Overall you get what you pay for, it's a decent laptop for a decent price. Would recommend if on a budget.