HP Pavilion dv5130us 15.4" Notebook PC (AMD Turion 64 Mobile Processor ML-37, 1024 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, LightScribe Double – Customer Reviews
HP Pavilion 5130us by KaTwo
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The track pad does disable when you want to type. It reengages when one restarts or exits from hibernation. The shift key is a "sticky" key which allows one to use it for CTL-ALT-SHIFT combinations -- thus the issue of sometimes when you hold down the shift key longer than 4 secs. it locks into CAPITALS.
The cdrom is based on Roxio software and is very easy to use the wizard. DVDs are also easy to burn into a drag n drop box.
My harddrive makes four clicking noises when I start it up -- that is rather unnerving and distracting.My computer came with a very good pc recovery system by configuring a D: partition for restore purposes. Also, there is a feature for you to have checkpoints in the state of you notebook so in case of trouble, one can revert back to a safe state.It would be nice if this feature was tied in with the XP hibernate feature; whenever one hibernates the notebook, a checkpoint is copied to the D: partition.
The PC recovery system works well.In the second week of use, I scored a trojan horse and had to use it. All personal data was lost, but the pc was returned to its original shipping state.Not all was lost -- the printer was effortlessly reconfigured very quickly probably because it was a HP 5610 ALl in One.
I will install LINUX to utilize the 64 bit features, but Windows users note that this machine is VISTA capable -- when it gets here.7/24/2006 12:00 AM | Rating:
I miss my IBM
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Compared to the keyboard on my old IBM A31, the keyboard sucks. It's noisy, tough, and they keys rattle. I also wish it had a trackpoint device so I could disable the touchpad. The touchpad also needs an on/off switch like I saw on some of the other HP models for when I am using a mouse. Also, spontaneously, the keyboard will suddenly start typing in all caps for a minute or two. It even happened when I initially started typing this! I put Windows XP Professional on instead of the Media Center and it still does it.
I like to play Battlefield 2. While it runs, it needs a little better video card and a much faster harddrive. Speaking of video, the 128MB of RAM is dedicated. There is also a feature in the BIOS where you can share RAM for a total of up to 256MB for video.
I bought mine at CompUSA and I am a little peeved. At least Amazon makes it clear that the 1GB of RAM is in two sticks of 512MB. I originally thought it came with 1 stick of 1024MB, which would have made sense. It makes it a little more difficult to upgrade.
While it has a Turion 64 processor, it doesnt come with a 64 bit version of Windows XP. HP is also not supporting 64 bit operating systems. Therefore, unless you are going to use linux, the extra registers and stuff characteristic of a 64bit processor are wasted. It it still pretty fast though.
I am happy with the security. It has a harddrive password feature just like the one my IBM A31 had. If it gets stolen, all your info on the harddrive is useless to the theives, unless they can guess your password. Hands down, that is the best security feature a computer can have.
If you need Gigabit LAN speed, this doesn't do it. It just has a 10/100 ethernet card. Also, according to a few system information programs, it seems as if only one of the USB ports is actually USB 2.0.
The one touch DVD feature sucks too. It still has to load Windows, even though it is supposed to be a fast stand-alone deal. The DVD burning is pretty cool though. I havent used the lightscribe stuff yet, but my friends have lightscribe burners and they love it.
Finally, they lie about the battery capacity. I got mine a little over a month ago and have never had it last more than an hour on batteries, even with the brightness turned all the way down and without using the DVD.6/15/2006 12:00 AM | Rating:
