After so many days, finally I’ve got some time to write a review on this beauty I bought couple of months ago.This is my first laptop 🙂 , it took me ages to determine which one to buy. So many brands in the market now a days that it is very difficult to choose the right one and I think I’m pretty satisfied with the first purchase of my life. Sorry for the bad quality pictures in this review [ iMate-JAMin Camera 🙂 ].
I bought it from shophive.com. The HP Pavilion dv5-1135EE is a dv5t series notebook with a 15.4-inch screen laptop powered by Intel’s Core 2 Duo mobile processor and with powerful dedicated graphics.
Specification of my dv5 :
- Onyx black
- Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor [ 2.26GHz – 1066MHz FSB – 3MB L2 Cache ]
- 15.4” WXGA High-Definition AG with BrightView Infinity Display
- Nvidia GeForce 9600M-GT w/ 512MB DDR2 dedicated video card
- 3072 MB RAM [ 1 x 1024 MB + 1 x 2048 MB ]
- 250GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
- Intel® WiFi Link 5100 + Bluetooth
- High speed 56K modem
- Webcam
- Lightscribe Super Multi DVD Writer (+/-R +/-RW) with Double Layer support
- Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
- 6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery
Design and Looks
The design of HP Pavilion DV5-1135EE is simply outstanding. It has onyx black lid with imprint glossy fininsh look cool. Two colors are used black and silver. All of the viewable surfaces are glossy and reflective. The keyboard area has a silver metallic finish.
The entire display portion of the notebook is glossy black. The palmrest and base of the notebook is silver and metallic. I like the contrast between these two colors and looks nice.
The base of the notebook has two variations of silver – dull silver and silver metallic. The metallic finish is like a mirror. I hate the stickers on the palm rest area. All area is covered by these ugly stickers.
The status lights for power, battery charge, and hard disk activity are located in the front edge of the notebook, below the left palmrest. It is easy to see them when the display is closed, and the indicator labels above each light are even imprinted on the top of the display. I think the indication lights are quite bright .
One more good touch is the HP logo on the back. It lights up when the notebook is on and look nice.
Build Quality
The Pavilion dv5-1135EE is made of high-strength plastic and looks solid. The base and lid of the notebook are particularly strong, which is important as they’ll sustain the most weight pressure from books piled into a backpack. The paint finish of the notebook seems like it will hold up its looks over time. After two months of usage and some bumps during that time the Pavilion dv5 I have has sustained no scratches.
The glossy finish of the notebook is quite durable.
Screen and Display
This laptop has 15.4” WXGA High-Definition AG with BrightView Infinity Display. It has glass that extends to the edges of the bezel for a crisp, clean look. HP dv5-1135EE is configured with a 1280 x 800, 15.4-inch panel with a BrightView Infinity treatment for enhanced movie watching. The colors on the WXGA screen are vibrant. The brightness of the panel is also perfect. The glossy screen provides quite a bit of reflection so if you have strong lighting behind you the screen will act like a mirror.
Speakers
HP Pavilion DV5-1135EE comes with two Altec Lansing stereo speakers. These speakers are a definite step up from standard generic notebook speakers in terms of sound quality. Voices come through clear. The dv5 does not have a dedicated subwoofer. The speakers get reasonably loud, though not impressively so. I am on the whole satisfied with the dv5’s speaker system.
Media Remote
HP Pavilion DV5-1135EE comes with a remote control. We can use it with Windows Media Center and HP QuickPlay.
I also tried using it with some other media players and works well. Overall it is a useful component.
Webcam
The builtin webcam is good. I cant compare it with other webcams out there in the market as I never used one before.
The Cyberlink Youcam preinstalled in the machine is also cool. We can also use the webcam with HP QuickPlay. Here is an image taken from the webcam using Cyberlink Youcam.
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Keyboard and Trackpad
The keyboard is just awesome to use. I like it very much.The keys are also bigger than the other 15.4″ notebooks available now a days.
The trackpad has separate left/right buttons and a vertical scroll zone on the right. It also has an on/off button. I usually use a mouse instead of the trackpad and keep it off. The glossy surface of the trackpad is quite sticky. Which means if you have moist fingers they will drag over it, dry fingers wont have any problem. You can also use the trackpad as a mirror.
Input and Output Ports
There is a great variety of ports in this machine.
Left Side :
Right Side :
Front :
Back :
Wireless / Networking
HP DV5-1135EE has Intel Wifi Link 5100 AGN card for wireless networking usage. It can connect upto 300mbps if your router supports 5Ghz band. I have Linksys WRT160N and it can only operate on 2.4 Ghz, therefore my dv5 connects at 135 mbps. It took me ages to figure out why it is not connecting at full speed and at the end it was the router and I’m quite disappointed with that. I’ve WMP300N PCI wireless adapters in my desktops and they connect at 300 mbps. I never knew that this Intel card will do this, otherwise I would get WRT610N with more investment.
Battery
HP Pavillion DV5-1135EE comes with 6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery. I’me not totally satisfied with the battery timing as it drains out withing 1:30 hours if my power plan is High Performance. The reason may be the faster cpu and Nvidia 9600M-GT with 512MB dedicated memory. Perhaps in others models of DV5t it lasts longer.
Softwares a.k.a. Bloatware
HP DV5-1135EE come loaded with lot of crap. So many un-needed softwares that I created the recovery disks and installed a clean version of Windows Vista right after receiving this notebook. I personally do not like Vista as it takes hell of resources, but I had to install it because all drivers are not available for Windows XP. Hwever, I will install XP in future so that I can get more out of this excellent machine.
Performance
As I already mentioned Vista sucks all the resources, but it is still pretty fast. It gets really hot while gaming.
I tried playing Need For Speed Undercover with medium settings and it got really hot. Normal temperature is between 30-38 degrees, if we are doing usual work and web surfing etc.
Conclusion
HP Pavilion DV5-1135EE has a good design with excellent performance.
At the end it is a hell of a machine. I’m loving it 🙂
Pros
- Beautiful and different design
- Solid build quality
- Striking display
- Superb input devices
- Nice range of ports
- Good performance overall
Cons
- Too much pre-loaded bloatware
- Runs hot while gaming and other extreme usage
- Magnet for dirt, specially the glossy surface
- Battery time is average
Thanks for the wonderful review..
Hope u are enjoying the product 🙂
Thanks …
Yup I’m loving it … 🙂
Unfortunately, the review does not perform a complete test of the machine.
My computer experience would be classed as expert.
The person would have listed the fact that the
esata port doesn’t really work correctly with the software it ships with. All usb 2.0 ports underperforms compared to Acer laptops.
Whilst silver looks great, the mirror like reflections
make it unuseable outside.
This machine runs very hot. Life expectancy very suspect.
then the battery life is about 30 mins…
I own a dv5 and encountered numerous problems which disappointed a discerning techie such as myself. I admit, I made a BIG mistake buying HP.
The hp support is attrociously bad and did not resolve my multiple problems. In fact, they stuffed me around for 7 months.
The only saving grace really is that my AMD version does support virtualisation! Hooray.
Oh…the speakers are good but do you really need
builtin speakers in a laptop? Makes the laptop 1 inch wider and heavier too!
I paid a premium for my DV5 and it was a waste of money. Do not buy HP DV type laptops.
Do not buy HP laptops. they look good but fall way short on so many levels. Hope this helps others.
I have a question, I have a HP Pavilion dv3-2157 cl Entertainment Notebook PC, and is very similar to yours, but I wonder if the same laptop has saved a place to keep the remote control?
@Elizabeth : Yes there is a place on the left, where you can store your remote.
There must be some plastic dummy in it, you can press it and it will come out.
Check this image
Its been a whole year and I’ve not faced any problems.
I’ve not yet checked eSATA port, will post after using it.
Yes the screen reflects a lot and I mentioned it in my review.
Yes it runs hot and I mentioned that as well, but if you need performance you will have to compromise a bit.
There must be something wrong with your laptop battery as I’m using it for more than 12 months and I can still watch high definition movie for almost 1:20 Hrs.
Most importantly your machine has different specs than mine and I reviewed only DV5-1135EE model. Everything may vary for all models.
At the end “I’m still loving it :)”
how much is it?
I bought it in Feb 2009 for Rs.94000[PKR], which becomes 1105 USD