after careful consideration & tons of research, I bought this laptop direct from the hp website mostly because of the hard drive space & the huge screen. I was a bit worried that i had gotten my hopes up too high but this product absolutely did not disappoint! This is the fourth laptop computer i’ve owned, the others being two ibms (one bought through my university, it imploded two months after the warranty ran out) & an iBook that i absolutely hated. this computer is by far my favourite. It runs fast, quiet & smooth & the screen has such a brilliant picture! For school i use a lot of (allegedly) very high end computers for Computer Aided Design & Illustration classes, & honestly the picture on this notebook is a thousand times clearer than those more expensive machines. Vista has taken some time to get used to, but eventually i will adjust, just like i did when XP came out. This computer is an absolute steal. It’s definitely the best $700 i’ve ever spent.

The G70-250US laptop is a very capable laptop but with a 17″ screen it is not a lightweight. After 3 days of use these are my initial comments. The “HP Imprint” silver finish on the keyboard is very smooth which has a glassy feel which I didn’t’ like initially, but it may grow on me. The 4 directional keys, which are grouped below the right shift key, are half height keys which seem a little too small. The volume control is a two key operation which uses the left function key and a volume key, and that is a slight annoyance as compared to my other HP laptop (NC6220) which takes only 1 key press. The speakers and the LCD display perform very well when viewing HD movie trailers and various DVD’s. There is nearly 25GB of preloaded software, and I removed about 50% of which I don’t care to use or have acquired previously. Microsoft Vista is a decent OS, however I found a case where it was not compatible with my Netgear WGT624V3 wireless router (search the web for details on making a registry change in Vista). I’ll describe my laptop use to be 70% business, 30% casual audio/Photoshop editing and web shopping mostly at home. I’m pretty satisfied with this laptop knowing it’s not a stellar performer but capable one for doing ordinary office work and recreational stuff which doesn’t require the Intel “Genius” processor. It’s a pretty good price performer from HP (and my 3rd HP laptop).