"The lid is firm and gives off a sense of security to the user, as does the base – you don’t have to worry unduly about your lovely big screen getting scratched"
Matthias Scherer
The HP Pavilion dv7 range presents a variety of sizable (17.3inch screen) yet slick desktop replacement laptops, equipped for multimedia use and designed to blend into the work environment of most offices and households.
What we like best
The HP Pavilion dv7 is shinier than a big shiny thing. The chrome look that covers the keyboard and deck works well and doesn’t look bling-y or industrial. It does attract fingerprints very easily, however, but that’s part of the price you pay for such a futuristic, presentable laptop.
The lid is firm and gives off a sense of security to the user, as does the base – you don’t have to worry unduly about your lovely big screen getting scratched.
The HP Pavilion dv7’s native screen resolution is 1680 x 1050 which, together with the large screen size, makes for a very pleasant viewing experience of either online streams or Blu-ray DVDs. The colours are sharp and vivid, and the brightness levels are satisfying. The dv7 also has a built-in TV tuner with which you can watch television on your computer, but this produced mainly average visual and sound results.
There is a panel of individual speakers just above the keyboard, and the sound they produce is excellent – loud, with a bit of oomph in the bass regions and clear enough so you can watch TV series without investing in high-end headphones. The Beats Audio technology, previously only available with HP’s Envy laptops, is included here, adding to the sound quality.
The quad-core Intel processor ensures that parallel use of multimedia applications doesn’t affect functionality, and the ATI Radeon graphics cards available with the dv7 provide some support for gaming.
What we like least
The touchpad is this laptop’s Achilles heel. It’s pretty muddled – the buttons are almost indistinguishable from the rest of the touchpad, meaning there’s some wild moving around of the cursor if you want to press one of the buttons.
There is also a sizable amount of bloatware, increasing the boot-up time of the HP Pavilion dv7 and requiring some time-consuming decluttering of the new laptop. Another minor annoyance is caused by the disproportionately loud cooling fans.
For a desktop replacement laptop, the HP Pavilion dv7 is a good option: it looks stylish, is designed to withstand pressure (if not fingerprints), has a large, good screen and quality speakers, and enough processing and graphics power to ensure multimedia use. It’s not the perfect laptop (battery life and weight aren’t spectacular), but we recommend it for its entertainment facilities alone.
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Processor Speed
2 GHz
Processor
Up to Intel Core i7-2630QM
AMD Turion II Dual Core
RAM
Up to 8 Gb
Screen Size
17.3 inch
Graphics
AMD Radeon HD 6490M
Hard Drive Storage
Up to 500 Gb
Battery
6-cell
Multimedia
Fingerprint reader
HP Truevision HD Webcam
Multi-Format Digital Media Card Reader
Ports
4 x USB 2.0
1 x FireWire
1 x Express Card
eSATA shared with USB
Weight & Size
(W) 416 x (D) 275 x(H) 36 mm
3 Kg
Connectivity
Ethernet
bBluetooth
Wireless
Operating System
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
A large, well-designed and powerful desktop replacement: that’s the HP Pavilion dv7. Its silver finish makes it stand out from all those matt-finished other laptops out there, and its keyboard’s receptive keys make it a laptop that will be appreciated by all members of the household.
HP Pavilion DV7
As befits a desktop replacement, the HP Pavilion dv7 is built to last and to resist exterior influences (although it does attract fingerprints rather easily). Its large screen means that watching videos – either via online stream or its Blu-ray drive – a pleasure, and the sound is fantastic thanks to the integrated Beats Audio technology, as developed by hip hop legend Dr Dre.
There is even some scope for light gaming thanks to a selection of ATI Radeon graphics cards.
To read more about the HP Pavilion dv7 and its features, check out the PC Site review here.
"Cool machine, wanted my laptop to look good going for the AMD processor shaved a bit off the price and it works pretty well as well."
Olivia 14 February 2012
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