Customer Reviews
Hewlett Packard Pavilion 17.3" DV7-6165US Entertainment Notebook PC - AMD Quad-Core A8-3500M

  A very good laptop in general. By raf on December 03, 2011
Verified Purchase Review submitted for Hewlett Packard Pavilion 17.3" DV7-6165US Entertainment Notebook PC - AMD Quad-Core A8-3500M (HPDV76165US) Pros: Easy access to hardware, LAN and WiFi, Screen, chassis, Good CPU performance, Speakers, Great GPU performance Cons: Chassis LED placement, touchpad scrolling, Useless 2nd HD bay Other Comments: I like the overall look of the laptop with exception to the placement of the status (HD access, power) LEDs. Those LEDs are on the side of the chassis making them almost useless as they're not visible when using the laptop unless one makes the extra effort. The screen is nice, good colors. Webcam is good, built in dual microphones are a plus - works great in skype. The speakers are exceptionally good. Four speakers plus a small sub on the underside to the right. Although there are 5 speakers in total the laptop hardware is stereo only. Because of the number of speakers, the simulated surround sound is very good. One video on youtube in particular shows off the surround sound very nicely, search for "need for speed michael bay trailer" in HD. I also have a dv6 laptop by HP (15" version without the sub) and when playing the mentioned video on the dv6, there isn't really any surround sound to speak of, but this dv7 is impressive in this regard. AMD A8 Llano is not that strong computationally (pure CPU processing), compared to even Intel's i5, but the GPU side beats everything Intel has to offer. If you're doing light CPU tasks (Web/Photo/watching movies that are GPU accelerated) then this CPU will do very well. The strong GPU will give you advantage in gaming and other applications that utilize the GPU heavily over Intel's offerings. If you see yourself doing a lot of number crunching then go with Intel CPUs. The biggest downside to this laptop is the second hard drive bay, which would allow the laptop user to connect a second hard drive internally, for possible SSD + HD setup, IF it actually came with the cable which connects the second hard drive to the laptop's motherboard. As is, the cable is missing and it is fairly expensive for such a small part. I strongly believe this cable should have been included in the first place. In general, I like the laptop but the missing cable for the second hard drive is a huge let down. Recommendation of this laptop comes down to being aware of and not minding the missing cable and understanding the direction that AMD chose for their newest CPUs (forward looking, CPU workloads assisted by the GPU) as everything else in the laptop is very well done. The bult-in LAN and WiFi cards are very good. LAN transfers are approaching 1Gbps and WiFi tops at 150Mbits. I can't seem to be able to run the memory, which I upgraded to 2x4GB in dual-channel mode, something that the CPU supports on paper. In contrast, the Intel i5 dv6 that I mentioned earlier, enabled dual-channel right away. I'm wondering if a 90W power brick would have sufficed. The 120W one is very large. The power cable is also quite thick as a result. The white handle that is part of the computer's packaging box broke while carrying! It's good that the box was not raised high above ground or the computer might have been damaged on impact. Was this review helpful?     |     Report this review
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  Best laptop for the money By Andy on September 29, 2011 Review submitted for Hewlett Packard Pavilion 17.3" DV7-6165US Entertainment Notebook PC - AMD Quad-Core A8-3500M (HPDV76165US) Pros: Processor is very good, 1 gig dedicated ddr5 card, Awesome machine for money, Like better then i7 mac Cons: None so far Other Comments: Order this laptop big beautiful screen and very fast with suprising battery , bench mark over 3200 in and under 800 laptop is very sweet. cool purple led around mouse pad ...you can tag web site log in to each finger with the reader to launch them. Overall great laptop, my buddy got the 17.3 envy with i7 and he likes mine better except no back lit keyboard. Yes, I recommend this product Was this review helpful?     |     Report this review
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