Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Product Review I’d like to give you my honest opinion on the product in hopes to help you along with your purchase. I’m an average joe and don’t have anything to gain from this review other than a place to put my thoughts. My previous laptop specs were a Toshiba 2.1 ghz, 4 GB ram, 500gb hard drive. I purchased it back in 2013. I spent maybe 350$ on it back in the day. It had slow-down due to years of use, and the fan had become loud. It’s still functional, and served it’s purpose, but it was time to upgrade and move on. Spending a little more to double my ram, I decided on this HP product. Now I’ve had problems with HP back in 2009 with a motherboard crash 1 month after the warranty expired. I learned my lesson to never buy a laptop over $500+ again. Given that experience I was hesitant to buy this product. Enjoying the sleek design, multitude of gizmo’s, and comparatively not finding a better buy for the price - I took the plunge. Before I go further, you should know I will be using my product for business via the internet and casual gaming. Couldn’t tell you much about having multiple apps open at the same time given that might demand a heavy load (I.e. quick-books, excel, adobe editor, pro-tools, streaming services and a game etc etc). If you’re pushing that many things at once, maybe it’s time to have a couple CPU’s. Right off the bat, I noticed that the product was made in China, and it was sent in to be refurbished by a gentleman in Kentucky. The refurbished risk was a chance, but really, in this day you’re getting a pretty advanced package for the price. About the exterior; It’s nice. Has a well thought out and put together frame. The F1-F12 keys are easy to use for adjusting brightness or quickly modifying the volume. The only problem I’m having is that the up,down arrow keys are small. In efforts to have a sleek design, they minimized the up,down key area. I have average man hands, so it takes some time to get used to. The outside of the laptop smudges easily with your naturally oily fingers. Will have to pick up a 20$ peripheral case to compensate and not look like the rag-o-muffin at the coffee shop. Everything else is as you would expect from a laptop. Touch-screen is great for apps/games like Hearth-Stone, exhaust fan and power cord input are reasonable. The charge cord has a 3 prong wall input. As a minor annoyance, I’d prefer the two prong without the 3rd input due to extension cords strategically placed near my couch, but hey, I’ll upgrade and deal with it. It’s nice having two usb’s on opposite sides of the laptop - one right side, and two on the left. Even though your computer has Bluetooth functionality, it also helps having a headphone input. Luckily good-guy HP included one. (*cough* Apple Iphone 7 fail) Because the laptop has a sturdy but light compact gathering, you can slightly hear a bit of the inner workings. The processor has a slight “thinking” sound. The fan is quiet and subtle. As I record voice-overs, I don’t think the sound is loud enough to interfere. The fan being located on the side of the product also helps keep things cool when it’s on your lap. The display is nice and feels high quality. Colors are crisp, and the framing of the screen is appropriate. When going from a dark to light screen, there's a slight adjustment time to allocate brightness. Not really anything to complain about, but more just something slightly different. (It’s probably adjusting for dark to light pixels as not to shock or hurt your eyes. No idea if you can turn this on or off, but really, it’s nothing to complain about). Power on - What’s goin on? Initial set-up takes about 30 minutes with an internet connection. It will download a 4-6 gb WIndows 10 update in the background once it’s up. I’d say it takes 15 seconds to get to the Window’s 10 log in screen, 15 more seconds to get fully up, and functional with everything running coming in at a combined 45 seconds. Toshiba is notorious for throwing too much crap onto your computer you’ll never need. Luckily HP gives you the pork and beans with this product. Also, during Windows 10 setup, I found myself custom setting things up as to turn off minor annoyances like Cortana or notifications. The only thing I wish would have been included were a better notepad application. I ended up downloading google docs straight to my computer, so now I have a word-pad app. I downloaded audacity to get an idea on the integrated microphone quality. I noticed the app ran very smooth. You can easily hop in an out of it, and I had Hearth-Stone running at the same time. The muli-tasking on this computer is nice. The onboard mic is average. It can do the job, and tracks appropriately, but if you’re looking to use it for anything other than Skype, I’d say pick up a 50$ usb mic. The onboard camera is nice. It’s tracking rate was actually better than I thought it’d be. It can definitely get the job done for a skype situation. If you’re looking to use it as a main source for tracking YouTube videos, I’d say invest in a decent camera/audio arrangement. Video Games/Media - I played Hearthstone earlier today, and I must say I was very impressed. I didn’t experience any slow-down even with multiple apps open. Ok, I know it’s not the most hard-core game out there, but the touch-pad function was nice. The speakers are great. I was really impressed with the level of not-suckage it contained. I usually run the speakers at 80% so they’ll keep their life, and won’t peak. Even so, it has a lot of amperage, and could set the mood to any room. Skyrim - Ok, I know it’s an older game, but Steam has a great modding community that has helped keep this game up to date and graphically relevant. I was able to run this game on Medium Settings. Under these settings it ran smooth, and was able to include depth of field and other effects such as fog and shadows. Under High settings I did receive significant slow-down. If you’re looking for something to run the latest in gaming, I’d say go for a better laptop. But for me, I think it’s ok. I plan to play the games I can’t get on PS4 via PC. I think it will have no problems running the latest Counter-Strike, Undertale, or Diablo 3. The Final Verdict - Overall, for this day and age, and for the price, I’d say you’re getting a very solid piece of hardware. I’d rate it maybe an 8.3/10 - give or take a few points for my minor annoyances, or my old habitual preferences inability to change. I can safely say I will be happy with this product, and it will definitely get me through to the next 3-4 years when I upgrade.