GateWay Com

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Editorial Reviews

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Editorial Reviews

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Customer Reviews

Overall Great Laptop
Wow what can I say about this laptop? I placed my order on 11/7, product was shipped 11/9 and delivered 11/11! The shipping was listed as free super saver shipping but since Amazon had a free 2-day shipping promotion going on shortly after I bought it, I think they may have automatically upgraded it to that.

Anyways back to my review. Since I've only had this computer less than a week, I cannot be too critical or list every single pro/con. However I will attempt to list that which I have experienced (Typing the review on the laptop now!)

1) Computer came securely packaged and arrived on time, much earlier than expected. Package had the computer, battery, user manual, quick-start guide, power adapter + cord, and an HP remote (made for use with HP MediaSmart technology)

2) Initial set up is a breeze for a novice user. I'm not a novice by any means, so it really was a snap to get this computer up and running. Just make sure to plug it in and then let the computer run all the necessary updates and whatnot. Expect to set aside a minimum of 2 hours to get all this done.

3) I have been using Windows XP since...about my 7th or 8th grade year (2nd year sophomore in college, currently), so suffice it to say I didn't want to use Windows 7. Because this is a 64bit computer, and it has 4gigs of RAM and a 2.4GHz processor, I must say that Windows 7 is surprisingly fast and a very refreshing change after the last disaster of Windows Vista. The transparency effects arent too flashy like in Vista, and everything runs very clean, fast, and efficient. It does take a bit of time to get used to all the new options, but that might only be me since I did NOT upgrade to Vista, so I'm really learning for the first time the new layout of Windows.

4) As far as performance and graphics, I have not done any task which is terribly processor or graphics card intensive for me to have any opinion on that. I have installed Unreal Tournament 2004 and Rome: Total War. Both games are pretty graphics heavy and have run very very smooth so far. The settings are automatically calibrated in the game and it is nice to see the game set everything to HIGH quality. Proves this computer really has the punch to deal with games, even in a laptop form. The 17.3" screen is very vivid and bright while gaming, allowing the user to experience the best high-quality and high-def computing experience available.

5) A MAJOR point I want to make is the size of the computer and the search for a laptop case. I read alot about this computer before I bought it, and I did my best to try and shop online for a case to fit a screen this big. Unfortunately, not many case manufacturers have items made for a 17.3" screen, so my advice is to NOT shop online and have it be a hit-and-miss for finding the right size. I initially bought an (overpriced) backpack from Best Buy for damn near $80, and very quickly realized the incredible markup and bloated price they charge. Very soon after I returned it since both Staples and a local computer specialty store (GT Computers) had much cheaper and better quality items. I do want to make a note that some cases say 16", but they CAN fit this computer if they are spacious enough. My personal decision was to buy a laptop backpack rather than a case since this computer weighs in at a hefty 8lbs and is not the easiest thing in the world to carry around. Long story short is the advice to go to a store, rather than rely on a website, when it comes to buying a laptop case that actually fits.

6) Accessories + junk: The computer comes with an Altec Lansing Premium Sound System with Built-in Subwoofer. While this sounds good on paper, its not the best sound in the world in actuality. Perhaps I'm a bit biased since I have a 2.1 system with 40W subwoofer at my desktop, but for a pair of laptop speakers for the average user, they are really good. I was in a loud cafeteria setting, and my friend pulled out his USB powered speakers to hear a video he was playing...just for comparison purposes I turned my speakers up maxed and they not only drowned out HIS speakers (these were seperate, dedicated, USB powered speakers) but they also drowned out some of the cafeteria noise. An audiophile or someone who is really tech-savy will be able to tell the difference between low quality and high quality, but any other user or someone just looking for a casual computing experience will appreciate this laptop. Another fun accessory is the built-in HP MediaSmart remote control. It is slim, stylish, fits easily into the computer, and its alot of fun to show off to friends by turning my music on/off or skipping tracks and changing the volume from across the room. This computer really is aimed to be an entertainment PC, and hooked up correctly with an HDMI cable and a decent sound system, one could stream movies or videos from the internet, watch them on the tv, and control it all from the comfort of your couch! Very nice touch, and very fun to have.

7) Battery life: The product name boasts an "Up to 4.5 hour battery life" and I'm not sure how true this claim is, since I don't get anywhere NEAR 4 hours, but more on the low end of 3. All my settings are set to low, including screen brightness...everything is designed to save power. Don't get me wrong though: for a laptop with a screen this big, and with the processing power it packs, the battery has stunning performance. However, don't expect to get more than 3 hours, maybe 3.5 hours if you do -nothing- but word process and web surf. Windows 7 doesn't show the battery time remaining when you hover over the system tray icon like Windows Vista and XP do, but to circumvent that I downloaded a free program called BatteryBar, and it gives detailed statistics on the battery's time left to charge, full charge capacity (measured in megawatt-hours, or mWh), as well as the charge/discharge rate, full lifetime, and battery wear (Mine is at 3.4% of 73,440 mWh, meaning I can use about 97% of the battery's full capacity. Its current capacity is 70,963 mWh, and this is just due to normal degredation that happens as soon as the battery if manufactured.) On that note, it is really best to USE the battery rather than not to, since either way it is going to degrade. You cannot stop the natrual degredation process, so its better to just use it up. The HP user guides recommend discharging the battery down to 5% before fully recharging, to help the battery retain its charge/discharge cycles.

Anyhow, I think that is more than enough information from someone who has only had this computer 5 days. I'm sure I will write a revision to this review in the future, if I notice any major changes, or decide to upgrade the information for more potential buyers. Thanks for reading, and I hope it helps in your decision! My verdict? Get this computer if your are someone looking to watch lots of movies, view pictures or slideshows, and do alot of music/video based stuff (watching Youtube, movies, etc). I'm not a gamer but in looking for a laptop I wanted something that HAS the performance, if I need it, whether I decide to use it or not. If you are a college student (like I am), its a great laptop with great battery life, but be prepared to carry around a bit of added weight, just due to the sheer size of this thing.

Overall great laptop and I wouldn't change it for the world. Thanks for reading!

Superb for the Money
I had bought a zd8000 series 17 inch laptop 5 years ago. And not had a single problem with it.
So I went back to HP for this model. The zd8000 is a p4 and cannot chomp high def video.

This computer, dv7 3060us can chomp/edit the high def video. You'll be able to hook up that 500 $ canon
high def camcorder to it and flow easily. Which is what I was looking for. Using magic edit movie pro 15
when I added 3D titles, it began to struggle and the cpu went to 100 %.
Hehehe, this is to be expected. Regular titles are no sweat. I'm having no probs with high def playback.

Came sealed in the box, which is a +++ Nothing cheeky.
I seen someone complain about the chrome touchpad in another review, believe me, its a non issue.
I see someone else complain about fingerprints, believe me, its also a non issue.

This computer is high tech looking, and when I compare it to my old zd8000 it sits lower
but is wider. My wrists are very happy with this lower position, good work HP.
Super wide comfortable keypad ....

I'm also using this laptop to do multi tracking with music, and so far, no hiccups for that.
Working like a dream for multi tracking.

Windows 7 on this will boot up in about a minute, which is very nice also.


For the money, its a great laptop, good update for me.

Okay, here's what you really want to know.
This is an honest review from the perspective of a 50+ year-old guy who is very picky and cheap, overeducated and damn proud of his underachievments. Let's face it: most of what old folks do is CEREBRAL; I'm not a marathon runner or a dumbass nosepicking kid on a skateboard. I think for a living, and for those who can appreciate the difference, I offer the following nuggets of wisdom.

This new HP Pavilion DV7-3063CL replaced my 20-year old IBM Aptiva desktop that ran my own custom version of Win98SE. (I re-wrote and compiled parts of the OS to suit my needs, as well as used code from Windows ME to properly support large DASD's. Reverse engineering ROCKS.) I have used 56K dialup and a nice old NEC 15" flatscreen that worked great for almost 20 years. I bought this thing on a whim for Christmas, now that I'm divorced and finally have some extra money. I've always wanted a decent laptop and now I have it! Here are my honest impressions of this thing.

I'm cheap, so I bought discounted at Costco. What caught my eye immediately was the stainless steel around the edge, the HDMI port, the touchpad and the brick-sturdy feel. It's not ultra-light, nor does the screen flip open easily. The screen hinge is tight and has remained that way since I bought it. This is good: I don't want the damned thing flopping around while I type. The artsy-fartsy design on the front sucks but it's not obnoxious either. It's HUGE, heavy and it takes up a lot of real estate. This isn't a laptop: it's a portable desktop computer, which suits me just fine.

Windows 7 isn't as much of a PIA as I thought it might be. The function keys really save time. The DVD player controls up next to the screen are outstanding and very useful. The keyboard is quiet and mushy which bothers me, as I prefer my old classic IBM 5150 board that makes lots of soothing clickety-clackety noise. Getting used to a laptop keyboard takes lots of PATIENCE. Separate numberpad is nice. Ability to turn off touchpad is great because my big paws often get in the way. GOBS of ports on this thing, more than you'll ever need. It feels SOLID and well made. The HD is lightning fast and quiet. The screen is a stunner and easy to read --great for us old guys who can't see their feet anymore.

This machine is often reviewed as mediocre in performance testing. Bullcookies. It's unbelievably fast by anyone's standards, and I've run Windows 7 performance index testing that proves it. The AMD dual-core processer, 4-gig DDR2 memory and 500GB 7200-SATA drive work well together; I shut the swapfile nonsense off completely, de-crapified the HD and made numerous tweaks including the deletion of dozens of scheduled tasks, and this machine now flat-out HAULS ASS.

Watching instant-play movies from Netflix on an HDTV is a breeze using a $.50 cent HDMI cable. I discovered the DVD drive supports DVD-RAM disks, although writing is extremely slow. Win7 also can use DVD -/+RW disks like a floppy for reading/writing. Great for backing up data, but again, SLOW. There is also a 2nd drive bay to install another hard drive for full-system (cloned) backups. You can turn off the foofy screen effects through Control Panel so that it looks like older versions of Windows and speed things up, but I find that computer speed is greasy-fast no matter if the silly effects are on or off, thanks to the fast dedicated video card. The SDHC card slot works great and is fast; I use Class 6 cards to back data up, and it's much easier than using DVD's by a longshot.

The bad news: tons of bloatware and crap slow boot times and suck up RAM. Thanks, HP, you cagefull of simeon, crap-throwing idiots! The good news: it can be blown away easily using "PC Decrapifier" (Love the name! Freeware and it WORKS) and tweaking task scheduler. All I left in was MS Works. All that "Windows Live" crapola, Photoshop X2 nonsense and the rest got blown away immediately. Same goes for the demoware, upgrade-beggerware and especially the upgradeware games --GONE, and whatever you do --be SURE to blow the Norton Antivirus demoware away ASAP; it causes nothing but problems. Nuke anything that loads up at boot time, esp. those damned "updaters" that sit in memory and basically do nothing. I shed 20GB by just dumping bloatware and I now have an honest-to-goodness 30-second cold boot to brag about. If you take the time to dump all the crap that comes preinstalled, you will be awestruck by the raw speed this thing has to offer for such a bargain laptop.

Bottom line: lightning-fast, beautiful huge screen, Win7, oodles of storage and RAM and sexy lines at a great price. Battery life is not overstated; I easily get 4+ hours on a charge with the screen brightness turned down. This is a great replacement for a desktop system, and I can recommend it to the over-50 crowd that just wants something fast, cheap, and that WORKS with just a few tweaks. Dump the bloatware and you've got a greasy-fast, sexy, wide-screened toy that will make your nipples hard just thinking about it.

RAM (Random Access Memory):
Memory is one of the key components of a computer which is measured in megabytes. Note that 1000 MB is equal to 1 gigabyte (GB). So the more megabytes you have the better your computer works. Most computers today come with a minimum of 512 MB (about half a gigabyte) of RAM. You should try for 1 GB and more because your computer will run that much faster. Not that Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard operating systems require 1 GB for good performance and 2 GB to run at top speed.

Recommendation: I suggest buying at least 1 GB (1,000 MB). Remember that Windows Vista and Mac Leopard are memory hungry so I advise buying as much RAM as you can afford. Memory is the crutch of making a computer run like it should.

Insider's tip: Buy the minimum amount of memory and then purchase extra memory components called "sticks" from a site such as www.datamemorysystems.com/. This can save you up to a couple hundred dollars.

Buyer Beware: It is not uncommon for low end computers ($300 to $600) to come with low amounts of RAM. Make sure to check on the ability of your computer as it should be able to handle 4 GB.

Central Processing Unit (the brains):
The CPU handles all the calculations of the computer. For the average user, CPU speed is not as important of a gauge as it used to be. The common computer user will not need to worry about cpu speed as much as a gamer or multimedia user.

CPUs are made by either Intel or AMD and both companies have great product options. Intel controls most of the market share and costs more than AMD.
Recommendation: CPUs come in two forms: 32 bit and 64 bit. I suggest the 32-bit processors because the 64-bit processors have a lot of problems working with software programs.

Dual Core processors are all the rage right now. What's Dual core? This means that your computer has two CPUs which give the user twice the computing power. Dual core is a must for high end computer users.

Hard Drive: the storage unit
All of your personal data such as your documents, digital photos, music, and software programs are stored on the hard drive which are available in many sizes and speeds. Hard drive Storage is measured in gigabytes and computers usually come with at least 80 GB of storage.

Insider's tip: Computers can be configured with two hard drives.
Option 1: Two drives giving which can double your storage.
Option 2: One hard drive keeps an exact copy of the other drive. So if you have a hard drive fail it is not a big deal because you can run off the other drive

Recommendation: You are best getting a 120 GB drive with a speed of 5400 rpm.
Video Chipsets: graphics eye candy1
Windows Vista and Mac OS X Leopard are the new operating systems that require a lot of fancy 3-D animation that requires better graphics hardware.

You have two choices when choosing video chipsets:
1.An integrated or built in Video card right into the motherboard of the computer. If you are an average computer user than this option should work just fine.

2.ATI and NVIDIA offer video cards that produce much better graphics and can handle Windows Vista and Mac Leopard with ease. Cards by these two companies are your only option if you on gaming.

Recommendation: Look for an Intel GMA3100 (model #) or better with the higher numbers being more advanced.

Now that you have mastered the basics of how to buy a computer, it's time for you to make some decisions. Don't worry, we are here to help!

Buying a printer is a one time cost, but since printer ink cartridges need to be bought on a regular basis, the cost of operating the printer and maintaining it in proper condition can add up. Each ‘print’ command, however small, makes your printer use ink, but with some easy tips, you can actually save a lot of ink and use a cartridge for a longer period than usual.

1) Print only what is necessary

Let’s begin with economising. Most often, we end up making unnecessary printouts and in the process waste precious ink. For instance, you might need to print only a small portion of a web page instead of the whole page. Instead of simply printing the whole page, complete with its heavy graphics etc, be specific on what you want to have in hard copy and print only that portion.

Text always consumes less ink compared to graphics or images. If textual information is all that you need then you can make sure that you don’t print the graphics and images. If it is a web page you need to save in a printed form, check for its print version. If there is no print version, you can copy and paste the text in a word document and take a printout of that.

Also try to do a bit of planning and double check what you are printing before hitting the print button.

2) Go for a quick print preview

Most branded printers such as HP, Canon, Dell, Epson or any other printer come with a printer driver which has a very useful print preview function. With this function, you can have a prior preview of the copy you want to take a print out of.

This function is especially handy when you are directly taking the print out from the Internet. At times, what you see on a site is totally different as compared to the printed version. A quick preview can help to get the printout of the material that you specifically want.

3) Make sure the power is turned off

Just as you never switch off your computer without properly shutting it down, the same rule applies to your printer too. If you don’t shut down the printer properly, the print heads will remain directly exposed to air causing the ink to dry in the nozzles which, in turn, could affect the quality of printing adversely. Make it a habit to check the position of the print heads before cutting off the power.

4) Use good software

There are various ink saving software options available online. These software applications are designed to reduce the consumption of your printer ink. With these applications, you can get good quality printout copies with less ink consumption even during high resolution printing.

5) Use printer ink cartridges smartly

If you don’t do printing regularly, run a small printing test at least once a week, to avoid the ink cartridges from drying up. This little precaution will help you to increase the life of the cartridge.

6) Never expose your printer to extreme temperatures

Too much variation in room temperature is bad for printer ink cartridges. You must avoid keeping your printer in too hot or too cold a temperature as the cartridges can dry up. For lasting printer performance, make sure the room has a normal and stable temperature.

With these small but important tips, your printer ink cartridges will get a longer life. It is easy to buy good quality printer ink cartridges at excellent prices from online shops.

$As a general rule, black ink cartridges are more affordable than color toner. When considering which to purchase, take a moment to think about how you will be using your printer. Will your printouts require color or will they work just as well in black & white? If the answer is ‘yes,’ you will save a considerable amount of money in purchasing the black ink cartridges.

$If you are cost conscious and also have a great concern for the environment, purchasing recycled ink cartridges may be your best bet. Not only are these more affordable, but they are also better for the environment as are other recycled products. One of the best places for purchasing quality recycled ink cartridges is Viking Office Products and Staples.

$When you purchase any type of ink cartridge, make sure that it is compatible with your printer. Many people are surprised to learn that ink cartridges are designed to be used with a specific model and manufacturer of printers, which should be clearly explained on the outside packaging. If you have trouble remembering the model number on your printer, simply write it down on a piece of paper and take it to the store with you. This will be the single most important information to have on hand when selecting ink cartridges for printers because without the right printer model number, you are not likely to get the right product.

$Because ink cartridges are sometimes very expensive, it is often possible to find a real bargain on a printer/ink cartridge combo. A recent visit to a local retail store revealed a single ink cartridge for $29.97. Just beside the ink cartridge selection were several boxed printers. Among them, a new printer and color ink cartridge combo, which was priced at just $34.95. When you consider the difference of only $5.00 and the fact that you could purchase a brand new printer and ink for almost the same price as a single ink cartridge, the better deal was obvious. In this scenario, you could simply resale your former printer on eBay and replace it with the new printer. This just goes to show that a little smart shopping can go a long way in terms of getting the best value for your dollar.

$The majority of ink cartridges for printers carry a manufacturer’s warranty guaranteeing your satisfaction. The only way to receive coverage as promised is to retain the original purchase receipt, ink cartridge packaging and warranty information. If your new ink cartridge should fail to work as promised, most manufacturer’s will either replace the cartridge at no cost to you or refund the original purchase price in it’s entirety.

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

Product Description

The Compaq CQ4010 delivers all the productivity of a traditional PC, in a sleek, streamlined design. It comes fully loaded with the essential features and applications you’ll use most for working and playing. When a computer looks this good and takes up so little space, you won’t want to hide it under your desk. It’s a perfect fit for any space and any budget. Together, Compaq and Windows 7 provide intuitive system control, powerful search and organization, and more security when you go online. HP Advisor PC Discovery gives you access to software and services you need to get the most out of your Windows 7 HP PC.