HP Pavilion dv9830us Entertainment Laptop Computer

Great Laptop Thus Far

By bjo420  Jun 4, 2008

Pros: Blu-Ray player w/ HDMI input, great processor

Cons: Battery Life (not too bad) and ease of switching from laptop to an HDTV

My wife and I have been shopping for a new laptop over the past few weeks. Since I'm all but "over" desktops, I wanted a laptop I could use as the main family computer with 17" screen. Dont let the 1.83 processor fool you, this thi...ng flies. Have not had any issues with this notebook (yet), although we have really only had it about a week. The price is very reasonable for a blu-ray laptop. We knew we wanted a blu-ray player and thought this was the most cost effective way to get both (instead of getting a warranty for a separate blu-ray player as well). The battery life will probably run out at the duration of a movie, but that's to be expected with the HD Screen and the blu-ray player. My only complaint is the extra steps you must take to get it to play on your HDTV. Right click on your desktop and click "Preferences". You should see a large 1 and a smaller 2. Click on the 2 and check both boxes listed below. Right click on the 2 and check "attached". Since you will have the HDMI cable running from the laptop to your tv, initially the sound will only play through your laptop. To fix this (if you want it to play through your surround sound system). Go to "Control Panel". Click "Display Settings". Click "Hardware Sound". You will see 2 options. Click on the 2nd option and then click "Set Default" then click "ok". That will allow the sound to play through your receiver rather than the laptop. You may have to unplug the HDMI cable from the laptop and plug it back in to make sure it switches to your HDTV. When that happens, your laptop screen will freeze with no icons present, but will appear on your TV. Took me a while to figure this out (or took the HP tech support guy a few trial and errors). Ultimately, he must have gotten the right person to explain to him what I needed to do. Read more Less