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21 out of 21 people found this review helpful
5.0 stars
"Best value 13" to 14" notebooks"
Pros: light weight, price, QuickPlay DVD withous Windows, customer service and support
Cons: Touch pad not centered between 2 hands
Summary: This laptop is light for a 14" screen. At 5.5 pound, I belief is the lightest in the 14" class. I have compared many brands and returned 2 laptops, that will give you an idea how much time I spend evaluating laptops. First look at the screen. DV1000 screen brightness level is about the same as Sony, Fujitsu, IBM and Dell when viewed at a 90 degree angle. At 45 degree angle the Fujitsu Brightview is about 10% brighter than the Sony Xbrite. The the Sony Xbrite screen is about 10% brighter than the rest of the laptops. I am comparing all the bright screen laptops and not the anti-glare screen laptops. I prefer the bright screen with slightly reflective screen than the anti-glare screen. The reason is, it is about 20% brighter at night and 300% brighter under sunlight compared to the anti-glare screen. You can work on your laptop with the sun shinning directly on the screen. The anti-glare screen has a sand blast finish and when sun light hits, the screen gets washed out. I would highly recommend the bright reflective screen. I don't think the reflection will bother anyone just don't angle the screen to the ceiling or the sky. I know that the video card shares system memory but it does not have any effect on me. I run Excel, Photoshop and Word mostly, so I think DV1000 is a very practical design for me. This memory saving design is one of the many reasons why the DV1000 is the best in value. Oh, processing speed is plenty fast for my application. The Quickplay feature is ingenuous, it can play movie without Windows and the batteries lasted for about 2:45 minutes compared to 2:15 if you use the Windows with the CPU on. Get the DVD remote control, it is only $15 and the bluetooth especially. Finally you need a MS bluetooth mouse to put the final touch to a almost perfect laptop. The Microsoft bluetooth mouse is the best mouse that I have used out of scores of mouse I tried. The AA batteries in the mouse lasted for weeks and you hardly worry about recharging. Oh, I forgot the stereo sound of the DV1000 is much more superior to the 13" Sony laptop which has very poor sound quality when playing movies. The DV1000 has the speakers up front so you can hear them loud and clear even with the screen closed. I have returned the Sony 13" which Sony charged me shipping both ways and the Fujitsu 14" with the regular screen. I have also returned the DV1000 with the anti-glare screen which HP paid for shipping both ways. I finally kept the DV1000 with the Clearview bright screen in the end. Do get the DVD 8x burner if you burn DVD, the 4x DVD burner is incompatible with some 4x DVD-R. Always use Hibernation button to turn off any laptops, your system boots up 2 times faster. The only things I have not tested are games which I grew tired off. I almost forgot about the keyboard. Because of the wider screen, DV1000 keyboard is wider than the 13" laptop keyboard therefore much easier to type. The down side is it is one pound heavier which I don't mind. Ya, do get the 2 year warranty even though you think it is a rip off and you may never use it. The reason is that it includes XP windows support and help on software installation in the future. If you don't buy it the software support is only 3 month and not one year. HP has great customer service, unlike Sony, HP doesn't do finger pointing when a third party software does not run or install properly. This tells you a lot about how Sony treats the customers. Sony quality is good but not the best, it is just a lot of advertising. You need to be objective and not get brain washed by Sony. Talk about money, buy 256 mb memory on Ebay, it is much cheaper but make sure it is laptop memory. I only take 3 minutes to put it in. At the time I wrote this review I would say that the HP DV1000 is about the best choice for multiple applications which take into account portability, speed, price, features and quality. Enough said, this is my 100 hours of experience with all the research, testing, trial & error. Hope this will help you to select the right laptop in the future.
- 1 reply to this review
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you say you think its the lightest 14 incher in its class well go look at the panasonic y2 (or y4) its 3.4 pounds buddy
