HP - Pavilion Laptop / AMD A-Series Processor / 15.6" Display / 8GB Memory / 640GB Hard Drive - Dark Umber

First of all, this laptop is AMAZING!!!! I was replacing a 5year old Asus laptop for this one. My previous laptop had a screen flickering problem. When I came across this HP one, I was blown away at its specifications- and the cherry on top: only $630!!!! I'll cut to the chase, I bought this laptop almost 2 weeks ago and have already run into problems. Pros: -great processor / HDD space -can run any game on medium to high settings. I have tried: Dead Island (highest settings), DC Universe Online (highest settings), Starcraft 2 (Ultra, with lag if played online), Crysis Warhead (highest), S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (highest with some lag) ((Most of the games listed below are high demanding, especially STALKER)). -The speakers kick butt!!! Because laptop computer's speakers usually aren't good. -I can multitask without overheating the laptop: I was installing 5 programs / softwares, downloading 3 applications online, watching a movie, and chatting on A.I.M. = did it lag? Nope, not at all. -Lastly, I love the 2 2.0 and 2 3.0 USB slots CONS: -BeatsAudio: sometimes you can hear crackling noises through the speakers (headphones on or not), it only lasts for a second ((you can work around it somewhat, in the options for BeatsAudio, but over time this problem might become unbearable (read on forums) )). -The CD-Rom is a pain to open, the button is sooooo miniature, that it takes skill to poke it to open -VERTICAL LINES!!! I read the reviews on here before buying this laptop.. and was thinking "Hopefully I don't end up with the laptop with the vertical lines." WELL... sadly... this problem started TODAY =[. My laptop was on a screen-saver and I moved my mouse to realize on the TOP of the screen... there was a vertical line flickering. In fact, as I type this, it is STILL there haha. I read on various forums about this problem and only 2 problems remain: 1). replace screen or 2). return the laptop. IF you do not want to return it, just know that in the future those vertical lines might multiple.. and soon your whole screen would be covered with obnoxious vertical lines. I had to deal with a flickering screen for 2years with my old laptop.. and don't want to relive that experience ever again. Conclusion: This laptop is BOSS!!! The video card, processor, space are incredible. However with any epic laptop (not desktop, in my experiences)... there is a caught, usually. I would recommend this laptop to ANYONE because of how awesome it is, but if you end up with the speakers crackling and/or vertical lines.. return it ASAP. And buy a new one or replace it with same model, for hopes that the problems would not repeat.

I gave this laptop 2 stars as opposed to 1 simply because it's a good performer for the price. Truth be told, however, upon (quite excitedly) booting it up, I found it to have a fairly significant hardware issue causing white, vertical blinking lines to appear on the screen. Not quite "DOA" but considering I wanted a laptop without wacky monitor issues, it may as well have been. I brought it back to Best Buy within their 14 day return policy and they were, indeed, fantastic in handling the exchange. I brought the second one home and promptly got it set up, only to find it suffered from the EXACT SAME issue. I called HP in hopes they might be able to suggest a driver update or help me to tweak some settings which may resolve it, however, before I could finish explaining, the rep insisted it's likely a hardware issue and should be sent to them for repair. I'm taking it back to Best Buy instead, and purchasing the Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5830TG-6614, which offers comparable specs and hopefully will function properly. Oh, need I mention, too, that on the first one I brought home, the webcam barely worked and both USB 3.0 ports did not work either? Luckily, at least these couple of issues were resolved with the second one. Now, since despite how absolutely disappointing this experience was, I'd like to at least offer a (sort of?) unbiased review on the thing, here we go: PROS: - For the price, this notebook has got some serious power. If you want to run low to medium to high level graphics games on it, you should have no problem at medium to high settings. I installed WoW and Sims 3 and both ran beautifully on ultra or high. I imagine it would quite easily handle something like BF3. It switches from program to program with no hesitation at all, and I imagine it's capable of even a whole lot more than I put it through in terms of number of programs open at a time. - Battery life was great. - Graphics look nice on the glossy screen. Watched some HD television shows that looked great on it, and on my HDTV through the built-in HDMI port. - There seems to be a new trend with laptops of this size finally offering number pads, so this may not be a huge selling point, but this does have one and I find it useful. - It looks a heck of a lot sleeker and prettier sitting on my desk at home than it did at Best Buy. I would consider it a decently attractive notebook. - It runs VERY cool. I mean, almost cold, even after an hour of gaming. It's kind of... confusing, but awesome! CONS: - I probably covered this enough above, but TWO IN A ROW... with hardware issues affecting the LCD screen. VERY disappointing. - The touch pad is a bit awkward and takes some getting used to with its two-finger gesture functionality. I imagine, too, it needs some "breaking in". I happen to use a USB mouse, so it wasn't a huge deal for me. - The first one I brought home had odd gridlines over the webcam, which I read online seems to affect a number of webcams from the DV6 line. Upon reviewing a number of forum discussions about it, I found tweaking some of the settings, and in particular, adjusting auto white balance (or something like that) fixes it mostly. It made mine better (mostly). - The keyboard is very click-clacky, and by that I mean it's loud when you type. - Bloatware! Guess you can't avoid it these days, and it's not anything you can't resolve on your own, but just prepare to spend a few minutes deleting some useless junk when you boot it up. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this notebook to a friend after the experience I had, but if they'd already bought it, I'd tell them I hope it doesn't suffer from any out-of-the-box issues, and ask them to let me know how it's doing in a few months, because it's a nice little machine otherwise!

I did a lot of research on the new AMD A series processors, and the conclusion that I came to was that the processing power of the Quad Core A8 for standard tasks like encoding wasn't anything special (This is pretty much confirmed after doing some work with it once I got it home#. Where the A8 processor shines is it's dedicated-class Graphics processor, which rocks. I've loaded up Dark Age of Camelot, WoW #Cataclysm# and Sims 3--all of which run better than I'd have ever expected on a mid-range laptop. DAoC is smooth and clear #mostly--it *is* a 10 year old MMO#, WoW is running consistently at 50 fps in high settings, DirectX 11 #as mentioned by a previous reviewer--I can confirm), and I finially get what all the fuss was about with Sims 3. It looks like it's supposed to and it's glorious! I've also found it runs very cool, even when under pretty heavy gaming load. The 8 Gigs of ram are also a great new experience for me. This thing multitasks like a champ. I've never been able to play a game and have my own music running in iTunes in the background. That doesn't even make this lappy sweat! I have yet to try more demanding applications like Photoshop, though, but I expect the GPU to lend a capable hand in processing power. I had originally purchased the A8, 8GB, 1.5 TB HD Pavillion Desktop, but brought it back after intolerable monitor incompatibilities #watch out for that new dvi-d connector!) and find this laptop to be a worthy alternative. It is large--full keyboard, for example. But, I'm using it as a desktop replacement anyway, so it works brilliantly for me! If graphics performance is important to you, this is definitely the way to go!

I waited a month before posting my thoughts, but I have to say... This laptop is great! I bought it as a replacement/upgrade from my college laptop which is a 4g RAM/500g Hard drive HP Pavilion dv4 with an AMD Athlon II processor. While I wasn't a total fan of the overheating dual-core AMD processor of the past, this one is UH-mazing! Although I went into the store looking for this laptop with a 2nd gen i5, after feeling the heat under the Lenovo competitor and the (lack of) heat under this model, I was sold! Now that I'm a professional, my needs have changed from writing research papers, cyber-stalking the frat boys, and building up my music collection to getting work done wherever I happen to be, Skyping with friends, & catching up on the latest episodes of my favorite shows. I'm able to complete additional training for work online, download new language modules because I'm learning French (which sounds great with Beats audio), and when I record minutes for the non-profits I volunteer for, I'm able to send them out before I even leave the coffee shop. I love that I'm able to multitask like crazy without it overheating (Thanks to HP's CoolSense management I can actually control my fan settings). I LOVE how long the battery lasts! I am getting some serious mileage out of this model WITHOUT having to buy the extended battery like I did for my last model. The quad-core processing actually divides the work evenly among all 4 processors unlike some Intel i5 processors I looked at. BONUS feature: the fingerprint scanner lets me sign into my most-used websites with just a swipe of the finger. Great time-saver!

I only bought this computer last night so this is going off of first impressions only, but dollar-for-dollar, this is probably one of the best performing laptops you'll find. Initial setup takes a while, but that's to be expected with a new computer. The following reboots I went through to tweak a few things were a breeze. I haven't gotten around to testing out the graphics too much, but the first impression was solid. The 8 GB of RAM is more than enough for pretty much the average user, and the fact that you can expand it to 16 GB is pretty outstanding, but I don't imagine many people would actually make use of that, given the current cost of an 8 GB RAM stick. The AMD A8-3500 quad-core, unlike some of the Intel "quad-cores" that are no more than hyperthreaded dual-cores, is a true quad-core, and it's got some great power to it. I was updating one game, playing Silkroad Online (a World of Warcraft kind of MMO), and torrenting a third game, and there wasn't a single bit of slow-down on any of them. My only complaint with this laptop is the screen is too glossy, and it catches a bit of glare, but it's tolerable. Overall, this is a solid machine, great performance for the price, and I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a new laptop, if they're looking for performance. I wouldn't recommend it for just everyday computer tasks. For that, you could find a cheaper, less powerful model.

Excuse any typos in this review. So I saw the new tv commercials and ads for the new Dell 14z and 15z, super thin laptops. I went into best buy thinking that would carry these. Wrong. Best buy stated that they would never carry these laptops in store.... Why, I dont know. So I proceeded to ask questions to these so called computer geeks as they call themselves. I asked what is the best laptop you have for running architecture programs and heavy intensive memory use. They pointed me to the HP DV6 before I could even finish my sentence. I was comfortable in the quick decision by the confident sales person. He said it was loaded with all the goodies I could want to run what I needed to run on it. I felt ok about it and proceeded to play with the machine for a few minutes. I looked ok, and felt nice to the touch. I could really only test it out at home and thats where I ran into a brick wall that completely turned me off from this machine. It is amazing how this high end machine can come with one of the best processors from AMD and have 8 GB RAM and what not and have such a poor screen resolution. I was amazed by this. How dissapointing to set up this new powerhouse laptop only to put it next to my old Dell studio 1555 to see that the screen clarity between the two was tremendous. I said to myself you gotta be kidding me... I played with the settings and NOTHING. It is ABSURD that this high end laptop does not have the best resolution you can get. I was really looking forward to having this be my new workhorse, but I am returning for the mere fact that the screen is terrible compared to my old computer. Ther are other things that I noticed as well that did not fit my fancy. This laptop supposily has touch pad features that allow you to use two fingers to scroll up and down and left and right just like a MAC. Sad to report, this function works terrible, and is another turn off for this machine. I didnt do my extensive research that I normally do and I guess this is the result. I had read that the touch pad often jumps of of the text feild and causes you to type in areas where you did not mean to type., I can see that getting really frustrating after maybe the third time. I will not have this laptop long enough to experience that thank god. Why it is so difficult to make a solid laptop that will please everyone. You cant give a computer the horsepower without giving it the nice set of tires to cruise on, you know what I mean. Would I recommend this laptop, I am still going to say yes for the mere fact that many people are not as picky as I am, and if you are needing a nice machine with muscle, this is it. But if you want a TOTAL package, meaning hoursepower AND tires, then this is not the one. Forgot to add...the beats audio was not impressive either. Its all treble....where the bass like its stated online and directly from the sale guys...Started to crackle the second I turned it up... Boo Also no blu ray player, but if your watching blu rays on a laptop.... thats a whole different problem all by itself. Buy a plasma and a blu ray player and watch movies that way.

After days of research, it came down to this one or the i7 for 649.99, and i opted to this HP because apparently HP is third ont he best laptops list under Apple and Lenovo, and despite the discrepancy in processing speeds from this A8 and the i7, this one comes with 8 gigs of ram witht he discrete video graphics which uses the processor for better performance, almost demanded for most pc games now a days. I am a working professional and a gamer and if you are looking for an awesome laptop on a decent budget, this is it! Some of the reviews will talk about defects, but that goes with any product, sometimes they make mistakes, return it for a new one, big deal. Luckily i had no problems with mine, and it is true, the dvd/cd slot is a bit inconvenient to open, but if your priority spec on a laptop is the opening/closing functionality of its dvd/cd slot, then maybe you should reexamine your priorities! Also there is no scroll bar on the pad like HP's other laptops, but this laptop was made for slightly higher than average budget gaming, so chances are you will have an awesome mouse! Despite its lack of a scrollbar on the side of the finger pad, what it DOES have, is an option to turn off the finger pad when needed so your hand does not affect the movement of your mouse cursor when gaming, AWESOME option. GET THIS. sidenote: if it's awesome for gaming, it's awesome for anything!

Bought this laptop a few weeks ago and had to return it to BestBuy. The screen had discoloration, it flickered, and the battery life was not half as long as advertised. Just set up the new one, same issues! I didn't detect a large difference in the Beats Audio versus their regular speakers (having owned other HP products). Also, I wouldn't buy from Best Buy again. I had the worst experience with their customer service. They refused to do a refund on the 'PC Setup' that was automatically installed on the first laptop but not the second because I purchased it from another Best Buy location. They told me I would have to go back to the original location for that refund. (Inconvenient since it is a long distance for me to go back to the original store.) Anyway, the original store let me know that I could not do the refund because they needed the original laptop as well to do the refund for the PC Setup. Long story short- they keep me playing the he said - she said game until I called the 800 number. ...Believe it or not, they couldn't issue the refund either and kept me on the phone for 3 hours just to tell me to call back in the morning! Bad, Bad, BAD customer service!