I thought that I might take advantage of Black Friday/Cyber Monday to replace my laptop.  This HP Pavilion has the features I'm looking for and is only a little more than I hoped to pay.   However, I'm so out of the Windows laptop market these days that I have no idea if this is a good deal or not.

Could anyone please comment on whether I should get this or maybe suggest alternatives?

Thanks in advance.

I have a hard time recommending any HP Pavilion model as they have historically had some of the most problems when it comes to consumer-class laptops. I'd recommend getting a Dell Inspiron for the price range, something like this: https://slickdeals.net/f/10926875-new-dell-inspiron-15-laptop-w-nvidia-gtx-1060-maxq-700

Asus and Lenovo also generally make good consumer laptops. If you don't mind used, Amazon sometimes has good Open Box deals.

Edited November 25, 20178 yr by strid3r

I'd stay away from HP as well.  I was in this boat a few weeks ago and I bought a Xiaomi Air 13.3 and I love it.  It came with Chinese Win10 but I removed it and installed new Win Pro instead. 

I bought a refurb lenovo think pad for dirt cheap and put in a 500gb ssd probably close to 3 years ago, it still works fine and was already way cheaper than 700 all in. Every Dell I have ever bought or used has been garbage but the last time was like 5 years ago. Ymmv

Another No vote for HP. Bought one for the boy years ago and it had multiple hardware failures and fell apart.

I've always found HP build quality to be lacking.  That's one reason I asked.

The feature set/price ratio was good, though, so you're on the right track.  I'm actually tempted to send this deal to my work's IT department, because they're so cheap, they won't even buy i7 machines for us, and I doubt they paid much less.

I've never bought an HP, so wouldn't know.  Dell, MSI, Lenovo, Asus, those are the brands I would stick with.  Anyone with more recent knowledge should feel free to add to that list.

A good way to check is to go to NewEgg's laptop chooser and sort by ratings...and then buy it elsewhere, because you never know when they're going to send you a coatrack instead of a GPS system, and then try and make you pay the restocking fee as well as return shipping..

Agreed on Dell, Lenovo, Asus for consumer.  MSI tends to be more gaming-focused, yes?  So features may be more than needed, but quality is there....  FWIW, though, I have heard a LITTLE bit of issues with some of the Dell Inspiron line.  But maybe not any more than a good low % of lemons.

And also agreed on where not to buy....I have not bought from NewEgg since that RAID enclosure fiasco.  Even after I talked to them, and they said it was the corrected unit, they sent me the wrong thing.  And then wanted to charge me to ship it back.  Scumfucks.

Before getting into Mac territory I used to recommend staying away from HP too and recommending Toshiba, but it looks like it's not so well considered these days. I keep a 1997 Satellite which still works, it'd need a new HDD. By its time with a 1GB HDD it was considered "huge" Windows 95 came in like 8 floppy disks.

Buy this right now.

https://slickdeals.net/share/android_app/fp/340951

Highly rated, I think the keyboard is the best out of everything listed, including the new Macs, and I've never seen a price this low.

You don't need anything gaming focused. The Dell gaming rig is a great deal for someone looking for gaming, but the Lenovo 910 is one of the best Ultrabooks out there.

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Yep, that would have done it.  But, of course, I just read this and the deal has expired.  I'll look for something similar tomorrow (Cyber Monday).  Thanks for the suggestion though.

Yep, that would have done it.  But, of course, I just read this and the deal has expired.  I'll look for something similar tomorrow (Cyber Monday).  Thanks for the suggestion though.

Did you check to see if there are any local? I have open box options for 530.

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I'll check.  It's funny, I was in Best Buy for a couple of hours buying a Galaxy S8+ and switching carriers.  I browsed the laptops and, if this one was there, it didn't catch my eye.  Too bad.

Edit:

Nope, there are none available locally.  Maybe that's why I missed it.

Edited November 26, 20178 yr by guzziguy

Brent, how about this one?

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-yoga-720-2-in-1-13-3-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i5-8gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-platinum-silver/6061600.p?skuId=6061600

It has a quad-core I5 instead of the dual-core I7 of the previous deal.  Other than that it looks pretty similar.

It's a step below in build quality, but still a good machine. What's the tax rate? May have some other good options in your range.

What will you use it for again?

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At this point, unless you are crunching a lot of numbers (in which case, don't buy a laptop) I don't think the specs make a whole lot of difference. Hardware has outpaced software, and you won't notice an i5 vs an i7, or a 8g vs 16g. Buy the one that is comfortable, portable, has a screen you can see, and that has a battery that will last. To that end, you can get an X1C5 for under a grand.

Hardware outpaces software but not in the way you think. Optimization of memory hierarchy and computational parallelism are still very raw, and then there's the whole word lengths thing. Light based computers should be interesting.

How do you know how I think?

At any rate, THINKBUSTER10 will get you 10% more off of those prices.

How do you know how I think?
At any rate, THINKBUSTER10 will get you 10% more off of those prices.

Mmmm... X1 Carbon

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I meant you as in a collective generalized you. But your implication based in saying that 8gb and 16gb are effectively the same, etc, isn't correct because software uses hardware as a crutch. That's why no one complains when your browser leaks processing power and memory like mad, because the hardware can still handle it (at least for now). I guarantee that sometime in the near future 8gb won't be enough.

47 minutes ago, MexicanDragon said:

It's a step below in build quality, but still a good machine. What's the tax rate? May have some other good options in your range.

What will you use it for again?

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34 minutes ago, dsavitsk said:

At this point, unless you are crunching a lot of numbers (in which case, don't buy a laptop) I don't think the specs make a whole lot of difference. Hardware has outpaced software, and you won't notice an i5 vs an i7, or a 8g vs 16g. Buy the one that is comfortable, portable, has a screen you can see, and that has a battery that will last. To that end, you can get an X1C5 for under a grand.

I'm looking at laptops mostly because that's what I've gotten for the last 4 or 5 computers.  I no longer travel with my laptop as I use my smart phone as my computer on the road. Also, I'm set up in my living room with a laptop, monitor, external keyboard and external mouse. 

The vast majority of what I do is read email and browse.  I am known to have 5 browsers and over 50 tabs open at one time.  Mostly I'd like the quick response that 16M and an SSD would give.  My C: driver currently is using 158GB so a 256GB SSD would be fine for the near future.

I won't pay more than $700 before sales tax and would prefer to pay less.  Maybe I should be looking for a desktop?

It’s not enough now, for certain work use cases. And for people with too many open browser tabs

I have i7-3rd gen/4GB RAM/typically 100-200 tabs open.

Starting to get a little sluggish.

Don't buy a desktop. My desktop, however, has 32 GB of RAM. It makes me smile.

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Your desktop is broken. Not sure why you are smiling.

2 hours ago, guzziguy said:

I'm set up in my living room with a laptop, monitor, external keyboard and external mouse. 

...  Maybe I should be looking for a desktop?

Sure sounds like a desktop.