HP DV9535 $1400 2Ghz T7300 (Santa Rosa), 2 Gig Ram, 160 Gig HD, 17″ widescreen. I wanted to get into a Santa Rosa intel platform right away, for folding@home and other apps. I also wanted a notebook with windows Vista built in from the factory. My Vista upgrades on my other machines have been hit or miss… and I have noticed slightly improved stability with vista on the machine right from the factory. For those of you wondering what the hell “Santa Rosa” is check here: http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2985 OK what I like about the HP 9535 ? It is a fast and cheap 17″ laptop for $1400. My Sony SZ with the same specs but smaller package was $2500. This machine is also fast. Some of my video codec transcodes were almost 2 times as fast as the 1.6Ghz Core 2 duo and 1.4 times as fast as the exact same 2ghz Core 2 duo setup on my sony. I like that it has the 2 gig of ram, 800mhz front side bus and the new processor which can do more instructions per cycle than the core 2 duo that came before it. I’m NOT a PC gamer, so the intel graphics were MORE than enough for my work. The X3100 is a nice step up for built in graphics. This machine scored the same vista rating of 3.5 as my Sony SZ which has an Nvidia GO7400 in it. However again, this is not a machine for 3D FPS games. The built in high res web cam really looks nice also. The video quality is the same as a high end after market USB webcam. I like the finish of all the new HP consumer notebooks. Its a step up from my HP DV1000t. Of course finger prints are going to show, but who really cares… it looks nice.. haha It has a nice large screen and includes Vista Premium on the restore partition for quick OS re-installs. Unfortunately that happens as often with Vista same as it did with XP. One bad codec install and you are better off just doing a system restore and starting from scratch. Look at the small shift key next to the arrows at the right (above). What I don’t like about this machine is the small shift key that some people say you get used to… not me (so far) … why in the world HP threw on such a SMALL SHIFT key is insane.. they should have re-designed the keyboard to accommodate a shift key that is at least larger than a normal key. The shift key is only a few mm larger than a letter key… this was a borderline deal breaker for me… but decided to buy it anyway. If you are a coder or touch typist… this is not the laptop for you. You will hit enter or an arrow up key way to often. Another “gripe” is the screen itself. Again, comparing it to models costing 2 times the price, the 17″ screen seems to have a blue tinge on it and can be a little fuzzy. You get used to it, but when I compare it to my paper white razor sharp LED backlit Sony SZ.. this HP’s screen looks a few notches below. Even compared to my Sony FE which has a normal TFT screen. As with anything..you get what you pay for. This is also true for the dual lamp “ultra brightview” version which I also seen. So not knocking it, for $1400 the screen is just fine. All the other features are there… except bluetooth. Another weird omission, I never used bluetooth anyway and on a laptop this big, I’m just using a wired mouse. If there was such a thing as a “thin and light” category for 17″ widescreen notebooks, this one would fit right in.. haha If you want the freshest, ultimate “all intel” based machine of the moment (intel graphics, CPU and wireless) then this machine rocks once you get over the few gripes above. Being all intel and with no discrete graphics, battery time is nice. OH and there is an extra hard drive bay (left open). A $39 purchase gets you an extra hard drive caddy that you can then use to mount most any SATA notebook drive in there. A GREAT option for having a notebook with 500gigs of internal HD space at some point (250×2). The intel Santa Rosa spec is a great step… I can’t wait for the release of the Montevina based laptops later this year, I’m gonna get my hands on one as soon as they are released. I was also going to mention you get all this for only 65 watts of power consumption: tiny little 65 watt power brick. 17″ widescreen laptop with the latest intel processor (and all the goodies, dual drive bays, DVD, webcam, etc.) using not much more than a lightbulb’s worth of power… that’s awesome… HP DV9535US Pavilion Entertainment Notebook PC Processor: Intel Centrino Duo processor technology featuring Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7300 Processor Speed: 2.00 GHz Processor Cache: 4 MB L2 Cache Bus Speed: 800MHz FSB Memory: 2048MB DDR2 System Memory 2 Dimm Max supported equals 2048MB Accessible Memory Slots: 2 Video Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 shared Hard Drive: 160GB/ 5400RPM Hard Drive SATA Finish and Features: HP Imprint Finish, HP Pavilion WebCam with Integrated Microphone and Integrated Fingerprint Reader Multimedia Drive: LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD positive/negative R/RW with Double Layer Support Display: 17.0 Inch WXGA plus High Definition BrightView Widescreen Display 1440 x 900 Network Card: Integrated 10/100BASE T Ethernet LAN/ RJ-45 connector Wireless Option: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection Digital Media: 5 in 1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards Fax/Modem: High speed 56k modem Audio: Altec Lansing Keyboard: 101 key compatible Notebook keyboard with scroll bar and integrated numeric keypad 2 Quick Launch Buttons HP Quick Play Menu and DVD Pointing Device: Touch Pad with On/Off button and dedicated vertical scroll Up/Down pad PC Card Slots: 1 ExpressCard/54 Slot also supports ExpressCard/34 External Notebook Ports: 3 Universal Serial Bus, USB 2.0, 2 Headphone out, 1 microphone in, 1 VGA 15 pin, 1 TV Out S video, 1 RJ-11 modem, 1 RJ-45 LAN, 1 notebook expansion port 3, 1 IEEE 1394 Firewire 4 pin, 1 Consumer IR Security: Kensington MicroSaver lock slot, Power on password, Accepts 3rd party security lock devices Power: 65W AC Adapter, 8 Cell Lithium Ion battery