The new 17.3" HP laptop review.

[Hermann]

The HP laptop I mentioned is in and up and running for a day or so. WOW! First off it is not expandable in any way. No problem. Will never outgrow this.

The Pros: The setup process could not have been easier. My old laptop was open and the new one picked up its vibe. Stuff transferred in a couple of minutes. Took less time than answering all the questions at the first opening of the lid. First thing I did was to remove McAfee and all it partners in crime. Only took about two minutes to do. Windows 11 has not presented any challenges that I could not figure out quickly. The worst one was trying to figure out how to turn on the keyboard backlighting. Shutting off the touch pad was easy. Right now I'm feeling setting adjustments are must easier to achieve than on Windows 10.

Performance is better than expected. This is my first computer with a SSD hard disk. The new 13th gen i5 processor along with the SSD drive makes screen changes instantaneous. When I deleted my browsing history in Chrome it was instantaneous. The biggest improvement I see in the SSD drive is moving from screen to screen inside of a app. Need to tweak the screen, contrast is a bit off, color and brightness are VG. Definitely a good IPS screen. Even with the 17.3" display the footprint is just ever so slightly larger than the previous 15.6" display on the Acer. The picture quality of the screen for text is very similar to my Kindle Paper White, heads and shoulders above the Acer.

Amenities:
There are many usb ports available, none on the back panel. There is a drive active LED on the right side panel. The USB-a is on the right side along with the power input, very handy. On the left there is another USB-a, a USB-c, a HDMI input/output, headphone jack

Moans and Niggles: The keyboard should be mounted more securely to the chassis.

Conclusions: Meets my needs perfectly. YMMV if your needs include expansion.

Thanks for reading

 

[JohnnyJohnson]

Got the same or very similar PC from Costco on sale for $549. Seems windows 11 changed somethings that didn't need changing. Are you sure the SSD is not upgradeable to 1T? I don't care for the auto diming of the KB lights but when you rest your fingers back on the KB they come back on.

 

[Hermann]

Mine is a smooth sheet of plastic bottom.

 

[benjy]

better than my new dell 16" that had issues due to lacking updates!! love the SSD, my first as well + backlit keys are GREAT!! BUT W 11 is even worse IMO activating stuff at will as the cursor just passes by + HOW did you rid Mcafee as its expired + continues with ANNOYING messages

 

[barryh]

You need to beat Windows 11 into submission. First to go on my new laptop was the immensely annoying widgets, then all the bloatware that I didn't want. Once tamed I find I prefer Win 11 to Win 10.

 

[Pew]

Glad you like it. My only recommendation is to do a fresh install of Win11 to remove any proprietary HP drivers and programs that may bork with Windows at a later date.

 

[Hermann]

Glad you like it. My only recommendation is to do a fresh install of Win11 to remove any proprietary HP drivers and programs that may bork with Windows at a later date.

Every thing is working fine. My printer is a lightly used (4 to5 pages/month) 5 yr old HP 5542 on the instant ink program. It printed fine first try. It works through my home network. I saw very little bloatware other than McAfee. no VPN ads and come-ons. Maybe Costco had some say on this. This thing was easy when it came to setup and initial operation. All I am really having to do is re-enter passwords because of the different device. Fixing my mouse pointer to be larger so it can be seen easily was a one minute job. Loving it so far. So far the only struggle remaining right now is making the taskbar icons larger.

 

[Hermann]

better than my new dell 16" that had issues due to lacking updates!! love the SSD, my first as well + backlit keys are GREAT!! BUT W 11 is even worse IMO activating stuff at will as the cursor just passes by + HOW did you rid Mcafee as its expired + continues with ANNOYING messages

Went to system functions and used search and typed in add or delete programs. I scrolled through the list and there were two McAfee items listed, clicked on them and choose uninstall on both. It tried to get you to quit trying to delete, be persistent and it will be gone. I haven't seen anything McAfee since I uninstalled everything McAfee in the list of programs, 10 minutes after lifting the lid for the first time. And as far as I can tell it did not mitigate to the other computers on my home network.

 

[benjy]

dell got me sorted out with updates + my inspiron 16 runs great, again cursor in W11 way TOOO sensitive!! looked at another hp 17" with a SSD but opted for the Dell, love the backlit keys!! i always wanted!!

 

[Brons2]

dell got me sorted out with updates + my inspiron 16 runs great, again cursor in W11 way TOOO sensitive!! looked at another hp 17" with a SSD but opted for the Dell, love the backlit keys!! i always wanted!!

it's adjustable in the control panel...

 

[ARCOgraphite]

The HP laptop I mentioned is in and up and running for a day or so. WOW! First off it is not expandable in any way. No problem. Will never outgrow this.

The Pros: The setup process could not have been easier. My old laptop was open and the new one picked up its vibe. Stuff transferred in a couple of minutes. Took less time than answering all the questions at the first opening of the lid. First thing I did was to remove McAfee and all it partners in crime. Only took about two minutes to do. Windows 11 has not presented any challenges that I could not figure out quickly. The worst one was trying to figure out how to turn on the keyboard backlighting. Shutting off the touch pad was easy. Right now I'm feeling setting adjustments are must easier to achieve than on Windows 10.

Performance is better than expected. This is my first computer with a SSD hard disk. The new 13th gen i5 processor along with the SSD drive makes screen changes instantaneous. When I deleted my browsing history in Chrome it was instantaneous. The biggest improvement I see in the SSD drive is moving from screen to screen inside of a app. Need to tweak the screen, contrast is a bit off, color and brightness are VG. Definitely a good IPS screen. Even with the 17.3" display the footprint is just ever so slightly larger than the previous 15.6" display on the Acer. The picture quality of the screen for text is very similar to my Kindle Paper White, heads and shoulders above the Acer.

Amenities:
There are many usb ports available, none on the back panel. There is a drive active LED on the right side panel. The USB-a is on the right side along with the power input, very handy. On the left there is another USB-a, a USB-c, a HDMI input/output, headphone jack

Moans and Niggles: The keyboard should be mounted more securely to the chassis.

Conclusions: Meets my needs perfectly. YMMV if your needs include expansion.

Thanks for reading

Did you bypass setting a HP or MS 365 pswrd and or account? I am sort of regretting going all in on MS365 for my wife's budget win11 laptop.

On another note, I got a cheap HP mini desktop with a low tier intel CORE i3 processor an SSD.
Thing boots in less than 10 seconds. I have McAfee on this but it completes a quick virus scan in about 20 seconds! Only issues I have had are sound card problems after some updates. I had to roll back a driver once. Some of those old tabs are hidden to make W11 look slick, but I found the search box to be a friend. Not so sure about some A.I "help" I received here and there. I do miss my never updated in 3 years win7. I knew my way around that being only a low level user. Enjoy! Ken

 

[Hermann]

I did not even use the Microsoft 365 trial. I do my VERY limited word processing on Notepad which comes with Windows 11. Yes computers manufacturers have made boot up times almost non existent even on cheap computers. We hoomans like Instant Gratification. I bought way more computer than I needed. I love the 17" screen after getting the contrast right. The lighted keyboard is great for computing in a dark room. After several months of use I feel completely at home with the HP. The computer is as fast as the day I bought it. Even happier with it after 5 months.

What changed my mind about HP was the HP 5542 $55 dollar printer I bought 6+ years ago. It has been flawless and I'm grandfathered on the Free under 15 pages per month Instant Ink Program. They just sent 2 hi capacity ink carts free. I have paid for extra pages twice, $2 once and $1 another time. HP products do play well together, I even bought a HP mouse for it.

Did you bypass setting a HP or MS 365 pswrd and or account? I am sort of regretting going all in on MS365 for my wife's budget win11 laptop.

On another note, I got a cheap HP mini desktop with a low tier intel CORE i3 processor an SSD.
Thing boots in less than 10 seconds. I have McAfee on this but it completes a quick virus scan in about 20 seconds! Only issues I have had are sound card problems after some updates. I had to roll back a driver once. Some of those old tabs are hidden to make W11 look slick, but I found the search box to be a friend. Not so sure about some A.I "help" I received here and there. I do miss my never updated in 3 years win7. I knew my way around that being only a low level user. Enjoy! Ken

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I did not even use the Microsoft 365 trial. I do my VERY limited word processing on Notepad which comes with Windows 11. Yes computers manufacturers have made boot up times almost non existent even on cheap computers. ... .

Almost all my files are Word or Excel, the only way I can keep track of passwords and account info and then personal finances and investments. I still do advanced data graphing, just so I don't loose the skill.

 

[Hermann]

Did you bypass setting a HP or MS 365 pswrd and or account? I am sort of regretting going all in on MS365 for my wife's budget win11 laptop.

Beings I already had a Microsoft account and password it was already setup during the transfer. I just tapped skip when it asked if you wanted the Microsoft 365 trial. Never have used Microsoft 365. Hear that it works nice. Just have no need.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Beings I already had a Microsoft account and password it was already setup during the transfer. I just tapped skip when it asked if you wanted the Microsoft 365 trial. Never have used Microsoft 365. Hear that it works nice. Just have no need.

Have it for my wife as she has a budget laptop with little storage. The MS365 include 1TB of cloud storage along with the Office suite Syncing can be slow even with a fast router. Also, the software can pretty "much take over" the machine if you don't check the correct boxes for file management and auto backup and storage. Next time it will be a larger HDD or a portable HDD and manual backup to cloud of critical files.

 

[dguzzi]

Now if I could uninstall or neuter Edge I would be happy!

 

[Hermann]

Now if I could uninstall or neuter Edge I would be happy!

When I said NO to making Edge the default browser during initial setup, nothing Edge has popped up. I do use Bing for the lovely daily Wallpaper. The photos are really nice.

 

[dguzzi]

I did that and I still see it using resources and collecting cookies etc. Its easy to clean up after but still I wish it was gone!

 

[wpod]

better than my new dell 16" that had issues due to lacking updates!! love the SSD, my first as well + backlit keys are GREAT!! BUT W 11 is even worse IMO activating stuff at will as the cursor just passes by + HOW did you rid Mcafee as its expired + continues with ANNOYING messages

Windows 11 sucks big time , more junk to sift through to get anything done.

 

[Hermann]

Windows 11 sucks big time , more junk to sift through to get anything done.

don't know what your sifting thru, but this is the best computer and operation system I have used. Update takes 90 seconds or so. I guess haters, going to hate.