After spending 2 weeks researching laptops, reading reviews, playing with in store demos, asking people, ignoring their advice and pulling out my remaining hair, I finally found a laptop that I am happy with. The laptop in question is the HP Pavilion dm4-2015x. The specs are as follows:

  • Intel i3-2310m 2.10ghz processor
  • 4gb DDR3 (1066mhz)
  • 640gb 5400rpm hd
  • dvd burner/hdmi/720p webcam/multi-card reader
  • Intel WiMax wireless

The thing that really drew my attention to this laptop was the size and the build quality. What I wanted most out of a laptop was portability and in my price range of $600, the pickings were slim especially when it came to trying to find a Sandy Bridge laptop. Because of this, I was going for the Lenovo v570 after reading a lot of good reviews for it. Playing with it in the store and seeing that the price had gone up disappointed me and I really hated the hinge design. It has a plastic lcd hinge which is shiny plastic and looks like it’ll snap at the first instance it’s mistreated.

Walking around looking at other models in my price range, I came across this beauty and instantly fell in love. The dark brown color (they call it umber), the brushed aluminium body, the shiny chrome trim, the sturdy LCD hinges. I knew this laptop would be the one. The downside however, it was an i3 when I was looking for an i5. After thinking it over for a bit, that didn’t matter too much. The biggest advantage of the i5 processors over the i3 is the Turboboost feature. This is nice but after much deliberation, I don’t need it.

I bought this laptop at Best Buy and I was surprised at how well the experience went considering all the horror stories I’ve heard. The sales rep asked me if I knew about the Geek Squad services, I said yes I did and explained that I wasn’t interested, that was it. No trying to force me into buying extra services, no trying to make me reconsider, no forcing an ‘optimized’ laptop on me. Just an “Okay, swipe your card here. Enjoy your new laptop!” I really liked that.

The laptop booted up fairly quickly and without skipping a beat, I fired up PC Crapifier to rid it of the HP bloatware. Unfortunately there is no way to avoid bloatware with any new computer unless you buy a Mac. Maybe that’s why they carry such a high premium over PCs.

Using the laptop is great, the keyboard has a nice reassuring feel and the screen is amazing. I managed to get about 7 1/2 hours battery life out of it coming straight from the box. As of right now I’ve been using it for about an hour after some light photoshop work and I’ve still got 6 1/2 hours remaining.

The i3-2310m processor is plenty fast for everything I’ve thrown at the machine so far. I fired up Back to the Future (the game) last night and it was plenty playable at max settings. There were a few framerate glitches here and there but if you’re bored in a hotel room one night, this wont stop you from playing.

The speakers are of decent quality but they’re definitely laptop speakers. There is no getting away from this in any mobile computer, they just play sound and are pretty loud. Nothing special here.

I’m extremely impressed with the build quality of this machine. The aluminium body feels great but the bottom of the laptop is still plastic. The plastic has a really nice textured feel and appears to be pretty sturdy. My only complaint about the body of this laptop is that it attracts finger prints like a Korean ladyboy attracts horny American tourists.

Overall, I’m happy with this purchase and plan to use this laptop for the next few years. It’s got the sturdy build that I desire and looks that will turn the head of a few Mac users at Starbucks. I highly recommend this computer.