Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I would have given this a 2-star review because of the very bad stock switchable video ATI drivers (which are HP's fault since they force ATI to go through them and not release drivers separately) but that has changed very recently.
First off, trying to find a 17+" screen on any laptop for less than a grand is a hard search - it's mostly Vaios and gaming Acers which are not cheap. Not to mention a real graphics card, an I5, 4 gigs of ram, and Win7. It's also got a pretty decent stock battery, which is large as stated in the other review but it's large in the right way, because it pushes the back up off the surface so it can cool without you having to suspend it over something. It's also surprisingly light: with a 17" screen and a full keyboard with numpad I thought it would be a brick but it's not bad at all.
Initially I was very annoyed at the switchable graphics driver which lets you go between the onboard Intel GMA chip and the separate ATI HD4560 because it was very flaky. For example if you let it sleep while ATI was selected, the switchable driver would no longer work until you rebooted, switching took a long time, and about half the time when you came back from sleep on the Intel GMA chip it would flash red green and you would have to put it back to sleep and try again.
That just recently changed however as they finally updated the driver, now it's quick to change and all the issues seem to have disappeared.
I would probably stick to the Intel GMA as much as possible because it heats up quick with the ATI card and most people don't do anything that requires the ATI card, I can watch full HD movies on the Intel GMA chip because the i5 is optimized to work for it and onboard graphics aren't as terrible as they used to be.
I doubt it would actually overheat if you left ATI on all the time but if you're on Intel GMA it's pushing out a slightly warm breeze whereas with the ATI switched on its definitely hot to the point where it will get uncomfortable if you're anywhere near the vents. Why make it work extra hard to cool down if you don't need to? I would say it's not a failing of the laptop it's just the way things work, graphics cards get hot and it's in a tiny enclosed space, on the onboard graphics it's actually much cooler than my old laptop which had a tiny fraction of the power this does.
As far as performance capabilities go I develop on it etc the heaviest test I have given it is Fallout: New Vegas and switched on the ATI card and it works as well as a desktop, much to my surprise. So the power is there if you need it but you usually don't.
Summary: very good laptop for the money, wipe the HP stuff off (my own personal preference since HP stuff is notoriously hard to root out completely, preferably with a format/reinstall) and update the video driver and you will have a very good deal.
If you want an even better deal grab the AMD one for $100-$150 cheaper which makes changes it from a good deal to an incredibly good deal as it's almost exactly the same performance-wise.
Click Here to see more reviews about: HP Pavilion dv7-4180us 17.3-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 7.75 Hours of Battery Life (Argento)
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