With its stylish, Imprint-finish chassis, excellent audio output, and remote control, the 14-inch HP Pavilion dv4-1555dx is best suited for students and others who might rank multimedia consumption above productivity pursuits. Detracting from its appeal as a general-purpose, workhorse laptop are its poor battery life, glossy display, clacky keyboard, and chrome-finish touch pad.
The Pavilion dv4-1555dx weighs in at 5.4 pounds--heavy for its size. The 14-inch Toshiba Satellite E105 weighs an average 5 pounds, and the 14-inch Dell Inspiron 1470-3282 weighs a trim 4.6 pounds. The Pavilion dv4-1555dx's extra heft lends it a solid feel, though we'd describe the build quality as only average. The chassis flexes and creaks a bit, and the keyboard is clacky. The glossy, keys feel lighter than a ThinkPad or an Inspiron keyboard, and they don't have as soft a feel.
The touch pad, too, doesn't provide the best feel; continuing a Pavilion trend, the touch pad features a chrome finish that creates drag against your fingertip when swiping to and fro. And like the rest of the glossy chassis, the touch pad is a magnet for fingerprints. It's also narrower than the norm, measuring 3 inches wide and only 1.5 inches tall, but it does feature a wide and responsive vertical scroll area along its right edge. Lastly, we experienced some unexpected cursor jumps when our hand or finger grazed the touch pad. We suggest disabling the "tapping" feature to eliminate this problem.
Price: $749
Processor: 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600
Memory: 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,066MHz
Hard drive: 320GB at 7,200rpm
Chipset: Intel GM45 Express
Graphics: Intel GMA 4500MHD
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium
Dimensions (WDH): 13.2 x 9.5 x 1.6 inches
Screen size (diagonal): 14.1 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter
5.4 / 6.2 pounds
, Posted in
Processor: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-66 (2.3GHz)
