HP - Pavilion Laptop / Intel® Core™ i5 Processor / 14" Display / 4GB Memory / 500GB Hard Drive - Brushed Aluminum

This laptop hits the sweet-spot of sub-$1000 notebooks that preform well and give you the most bang for your buck. With premium features like a fingerprint reader and aluminum body construction, this is a great choice if you're looking to combine style and function. Multitasking on this is a joy, even if you're doing memory-intense things like watching HD video, defragging your harddrive, and installing software at the same time. Switching between applications is smooth and snappy, and even resource hogging software like Firefox and iTunes play nice while running in the background. That being said, it's not all sunshine and rainbows here. The display is 14.1 inches which makes it great for portability, but not so much for things like editing photos or video. This machine can do it, but the loss in screen real estate can make using programs like Photoshop (which uses lots of toolbars to either side of the image you're editing) a feat in spacial reasoning. And, without dedicated graphics, it's not too hot for things like gaming either. Also, the screen has a tendency to show really bright whites, and washed out blacks, so things can be a matter of seeing shades of gray, when they're meant to be shades of black. The viewing angle isn't too great either, if you're not sitting directly in front of the screen, you're going to lose a lot in image quality. And, in this price range, you could find a similar machine that includes a Blu-Ray drive, which could be a deal breaker if you watch a lot of HD content. Aside from the display, there were also a few driver issues out of the box, which were pretty frustrating. The wifi reception can be spotty, and will sometimes not work at all until I restart the computer. I am a computer tech, so I made sure I had all the right software in all the right places, and it looks like it is just an issue that will be there until HP gets around to updating the driver for this chip. Oh well, it happens. But then I noticed I also had an unknown PCI device in Device Manager, which could be causing some of these errors, but the drivers HP supplies simply don't fix it. It's not a huge deal, but if you're nitpicky like me, it will annoy you. Also, you're going to have to get down and dirty with the touchpad settings, because out of the box they're pretty funky. Once you set them how they work for you, though, the multitouch gestures really do make life so much better. On the subject of the touchpad, it has a definite learning curve. The left and right mouse buttons are integrated into the tracking surface, which makes for a very spacious and luxurious touchpad, but can take a bit of getting used to. It does support multitouch gestures like two finger scrolling and pinch to zoom (ala Macbook), but, as I said before, you have to go in and tweak the settings a bit to make it work really well. Also, like the Macbook, the entire surface is 'clickable' (meaning you can press down anywhere on the touchpad and it will click like a mouse button) but it doesn't actually click. If you want to actually click, you have to use either the right mouse button, or tap, which can be confusing at first. It will take some one-on-one time between you and this trackpad to get your relationship where you want it to be. Overall, the good definitely outweighs the bad with this machine. What little nuisances there are, they are far outweighed by great performance, solid construction, and a great price tag. This laptop will do whatever you need it for, and it will do it well. It's not perfect, but it puts in a solid effort, and gets the job done 9 times out of 10. I've been carrying it back and forth between classes, and this machine has handled it like a champ. If you're looking for a smart balance between school, work, and play, look no further. It manages to live up to even my absurdly high expectations (most of the time), and it will handle even the most difficult of tasks with elegance and grace.

I bought this laptop a week ago and it has been perfect so far. The i5 processor is very fast, and doesn't get bogged down easily. The fan runs quietly and not hot at all. I don't think I'll need a cooling pad for this laptop! The battery life for my laptop from 100% to 0% has been about 6 hours, which is not far off HP's claims of 6.5 (I used the regular settings for battery life, not the power saving mode). I was pleasantly surprised by this as companies are notorious for exaggerating their battery life. The screen is very glossy, but so far I haven't had too many problems with it. Overall, the speakers are fabulous; good volume and not very distorted at high volumes. As a college student, I use this laptop all the time and I barely notice the weight in my backpack. The keyboard is one of the best I have used and while the touchpad does has some initial quirks, HP has a driver update on their website that takes care of any issues. My biggest problem with this laptop so far has been the amount of bloatware on it. You'll definitely want to use PC decrapifier on this laptop. Some things are neat though, like the fingerprint reader. I love that feature and I use it all the time. If you're on the fence about this laptop (wondering if the touchpad is a pain) take my word for it, you'll love this laptop!!

First I must say I love this laptop. The feature set is even better than the specifications on BB's website. IE. Includes an HDMI output and external eSATA port which I do not see listed in specs but it is mentioned in the product remarks. I purchase a lot of computer equipment and you'll find no buyers remorse here. With that said let me outline the shortcomings. The wireless display was the deciding point. Get's a little pricey when you add the Push2TV adapter. Also I was disappointed that the video was jerky since I was hoping to view Netflix wirelessly. I don't think this is a laptop issue as much as an issue with wireless display technology in general. Not a huge concern except an extra HDMI cable is in order, again adding to the cost. No bluetooth built in which again added to the cost for the Rocketfish adapter. The adapter was a simple plug and play install with no driver issues with Windows 7. The 14" screen was a compromise as I really prefer a 13". Not a deal killer. The mouse pad is a little touchy and the mouse buttons a little stiff but responsive. I suspect some adjustments are available that I have not tried. The 4 gig of DDR3 memory occupied both slots. This was a disappointment as I was hoping to upgrade to 8 gig. Not sure about the battery life ratings. Battery life is good but the specs may be optimistic. Different power setting may help. Little or no dedicated video memory means not good for gaming, not a concern as I am not a gamer. Finally, I would love to see a Bluray player but at this price it is too much to hope for. Not trying to be overly negative, just wanted to cover those things that are drawbacks. The feature set makes this an excellent value even with the added expenses. i5 processor, large fast harddrive, the wireless display, excellent quality webcam, fingerprint reader and aluminum case. Despite the drawbacks I highly recommend this for non gamers.

I bought this unit as a compromise. I was tired of lugging around a 7 pound 17" monster and had tentatively decided on a 10" netbook. However, after a brief trial I knew that my tired old eyes would never get used to that tiny screen. I saw this model at Best Buy on cyber monday and bought it on the spot. I've had it on a 48 hour marathon and I'm delighted at the way it handles everything I've thrown at it. I know there have been complaints about the keyboard and touchpad but with the only lengthy report I've written I plugged in a small "micro" mouse, turned off the touchpad and typed away with no problems. In fact, I found the keyboard to be excellent. Although I bought it as a "compromise" I now find that I much prefer it to the 17" model for which I paid three times as much. I would recommend it to anyone except serious gamers. Those folks would never be satisfied with it.

This is a very nice laptop. I just got it today. I like it a lot. It's solidly built, it has a great size, it's good looking, it's light, it has a Core i5 processor, it has a a spacious hard drive at 7200 rpms, it has a large trackpad with multitouch, it's virtually fingerprint free, it has good battery life, it doesn't have a lot of useless lights, and more... I like how you only have to press one button to turn the brightness and the volume up and down. I like how you can turn off the trackpad if you want to, and it's easy to do it too. I like how the case is made of aluminum. Value for Price: Very good. At $649, with a Core i5 processor and a 7200 rpm 500 GB hard drive, there wasn't any other laptop with these features at that price. Display: Good. You get what you pay for. 1366x768 is standard for this price. The display is bright and colorful. Performance: Very good. Fast and efficient. Not a graphical powerhouse but if it was it would cost a lot more. Convenience: Above average. The USB ports are too close together but it's like this on a lot of laptops. The laptop is light, and not too big. Battery life is nice, over 5 hours.

Pros: -Lightweight -Design -Hardware -Keyboard -Speakers -Display Cons: -Touchpad is a bit hard to setup for beginners. I purchased this laptop yesterday and have since gone on a internet surfing binge! I love how light it is (maybe because my last HP weighed about 7 lbs). The only problem I seem to have had was with the touchpad. This was in part BestBuy's fault for getting rid of the Synaptic's device that is supposed to be installed on this. As mentioned before the touchpad gave me a bit of a hassle at first. It would not respond to the double-finger scroll or pinch to zoom in commands. I had to go on the HP website in order to download the synaptics driver. Although it was an easy proccess to install and then tweak the touchpad to my standards, someone new to notebooks or not as expierenced might have had a hard time.

Not sure about the rest of you but I burn thru HP laptops about every year and a half to 2 years max. This one happens to be the smallest, most powerful one I have purchased to date. Price tag works great for me given the i5 processer in it. So far, very pleased with it and seems to run very well. I am still working out the initial kinks that come with a new machine. I run Slingbox and other multi-media on it and eventhough those are heavy programs and streams, all is very good. I am an "international purchaser" and made the purchase online for a store pick up in the US. Kudos to Best Buy for thinking about us expats for this service! Brilliant. I agree with the mouse comments. Worst I have used especially when you highlight and want to right click the mouse. It jumps all over the place and you have to repeat highlighting all the time. Quick fix for that is to Blue Tooth the mouse and keyboard when youre at home. Very good bang for the buck without a doubt. Folds into a slim machine and great for travelling. I would recommend this machine for sure.

i have been looking for a laptop that is very lightweight and convenient to carry around. so the only option for me was to get a netbook and lose out on a lot of features besides i cant get an I5 on a netbook or i would have to get a sony which are quite expensive than this model. similar price points the best i can get is an I3 the other models i considered was toshiba portege for I3 13.3 size and weighing 3.2Lbs similar price or I5 version costing nearly 1k i bought this after doing a good survey, i had my configuration in mind that i wanted an I5 core, 500GB and 4GB Ram something that can last me for the next 3 yrs. This is the best available model with the current specs at the current date and yes i have to repeat about the lightweight and the battery life which is pretty solid