Pros: Excellent build construction/quality. Body is made of a magnesium alloy (lid/screen is standard plastic).Comes with actual installation discs for Windows 7 pro AND Windows 8 pro, along with driver discs for each. Upgrading is very simple compared to other laptops, everything is immediately accessible after removing the bottom cover. Quiet. The fan doesn't even turn under light loads.
Can even handle light gaming thanks to the 384 shader cores in the integrated graphics.
Cons: Throttles under very heavy loads (prime95/furmark). Seems it could use better cooling. Haven't seen it throttle for anything else, though. Has Displayport instead of HDMI, and a non standard ethernet port. Cheap Displayport-to-HDMI and low profile ethernet cables are cheap and easy to find online, though. RAM limited to 1600 MHz.
Overall Review: Never used the hard drive that came with the laptop. Installed a 480 GB SSD to keep things snappy. Docking station and battery "slice" available through HP.
Pros: Excellent build construction/quality. Body is made of a magnesium alloy (lid/screen is standard plastic).Comes with actual installation discs for Windows 7 pro AND Windows 8 pro, along with driver discs for each. Upgrading is very simple compared to other laptops, everything is immediately accessible after removing the bottom cover. Quiet. The fan doesn't even turn under light loads. Can even handle light gaming thanks to the 384 shader cores in the integrated graphics.
Cons: Throttles under very heavy loads (prime95/furmark). Seems it could use better cooling. Haven't seen it throttle for anything else, though. Has Displayport instead of HDMI, and a non standard ethernet port. Cheap Displayport-to-HDMI and low profile ethernet cables are cheap and easy to find online, though. RAM limited to 1600 MHz.
Overall Review: Never used the hard drive that came with the laptop. Installed a 480 GB SSD to keep things snappy. Docking station and battery "slice" available through HP.