Hardware Geeks

HP has come out swinging these past two months with some of the best looking and powerful notebooks around. For example the hdx 16 and hdx 18. But with beauty and power comes high prices and there are some of us who can’t afford the hdx 16 and hdx 18 especially in this economy.

But just because times and the economy aren’t at their best, there are other options that deliver beauty and power at an affordable price and HP gives us one of those options in the dv4 a beautiful and powerful notebook for under $600. 

The dv4 comes in two colors, Onyx and Bronze, and I personally think both look as good as the other. I did however want to see what others thought and did a little unscientific survey. I asked some friends of mine (23 people to be exact 11 gals 12 guys). I asked which they preferred. 17 said the Onyx. Every single guy liked the Onyx and 6 of the women preferred the Bronze.

Besides the monitors outer colors being different, the inside and trim are different as well, on the bronze dv4z the trim and inside of the system are also bronze but on the Onyx system the inside and trim is a metallic with a tiny checkered pattern.

The dv4 is available with AMD (dv4z) and Intel (dv4t) processors, ati 3200 hd video card and up to 4 gigs of memory.

I personally have been using the Onyx colored dv4t (intel processor) for nearly a month now and while I am a huge fan of the HDX 18 and have been using one for nearly 2 months, I have favored the dv4 for most of my travels because of how much lighter it is, and it looks just as good as the HDX 18 opened and closed.

When you open the dv4z you are presented with a nice 14.1 inch widescreen high definition monitor. Something I have noticed recently with HP Notebooks is that all of their monitors regardless if you get the Brightview, Brightview infinity or the LED Brightview, is how vibrant they are. So even if you are trying to save money and get the cheaper of the three options you really aren’t going to have less of an experience using the notebook. However if you are into watching HD movies I would recommend the Briteviw Infinity or LED Briteview. If you are battery conscious like me I’d suggest the LED Briteview as you will get better battery life with it.

Under the monitor and above the keyboard is a beautiful Quick Touch display, which allows you to launch the new and improved QuickPlay software along with controlling your systems volume and media files. The controls are backlit and gives a little spunk to the system. You also have a wireless card indicator which alerts you if your wireless card is enabled or disabled. (Blue enabled, Orange Disabled)

Surrounding the keyboard and the Quick Touch buttons is a grill which covers the speakers, and another thing that has personally impressed me as of late is he quality of sound HP can deliver from their products. I first noticed it on the HP Mini-Note 2133. Small device superb sound. I then noticed it on the HP HDX 16 and HDX 18. Then Radiris noticed it on the HP TouhSmart iq500 and finally I also noticed it on the new HP Mini 1000’s.

I honestly don’t know what HP has to done to the speakers in their systems aside from tweaking some software settings, but the sound on the dv4z and all the systems I mentioned above is amazing especially for their size. I remember there was a time *cough* 6 months ago *cough* where listening to music on your notebook was not something you enjoyed doing unless you were plugged into the sound with headphones. Now you can blast music from your HP Notebook and not even have the sound all the way up to hear it clearly and enjoy it. So I again give HP props for the great sound the dv4z has and all of their recent systems.

But just having great sound doesn’t make a great system. The great sound on top of the great video from the beautiful monitor makes the dv4 a great system.

It doesn’t end there though, you can get a load of options onto your dv4, sure it will jack up the price but with the beautiful monitor and the Blu-Ray option which mines has, watching movies on a plane has never been better. I actually had a guy looking over my shoulder watching Pirates of the Caribbean and he commented a few times on how the picture quality was better than his HD TV at home. Not sure what HD TV he has but I wouldn’t doubt it.

I tried some minor game play on the dv4. Mainly WOW and it handled the game pretty well, I also installed Lego Batman and it handled that game decently as well. I wouldn’t dare play a game like Crysis on the dv4 but then again I wouldn’t dare play Crysis on some desktops.

The dv4 also comes with a built in webcam. It works using all the messenger programs I used it with, and with the included Cyberlink YouCam software it can be fun to play with.

You can also get an optional Finger Print reader on your dv4 and it works pretty well. However I had a minor problem with mines. My dv4 system arrived with no finger print software installed and I also received a new hardware detected message when I first powered up my system.

A 5 minute call to HP Support pointed me in the right direction to get the software (Which was already on the system) and I was able to install it and haven’t had any issues since. I was pretty impressed at how fast the HP Tech Support was, and no I didn’t go through a special Press Tech Support I went through Regular Tech Support that you will have to use if you called HP for help.

HP has told me that what I experienced was rare and they haven’t received any other calls with similar problems to mine.

The HP Pavilion dv4 was also tested to see if the system would be bogged down by pre-installed software and have a desktop cluttered with icons. At first boot there were fewer than 10 icons on the desktop when we powered up the system the first time. There was also no unnecessary software installed on the system or any trial-ware. A 60 day version of Norton Internet Security 2008 was installed on the system. So we are happy to certify the HP Pavilion dv4 Clutter Free So in our opinion there is no need to pay Best Buy, Circuit City or Staples any fee for them to have their tech support staff clean out your system. The system is perfect the way it is out of the box.

The HP Pavilion dv4 is available now click here for pricing as of November 5th 2008 and e-tailers with the item currently in stock.

Overall the HP Pavilion dv4 is a great little system and I’m happy with it and I think you’ll be happy with it too, and with a starting price of under $600 you are getting a lot of machine for your dollar. We award the HP Pavilion dv4 our 5 Star Editors Choice award for the month of November.

Post Tags: review  hp  pavilion  dv4  dv4z  pavilion dv4  clutter free 

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