Speaking Digital

By now you’ve probably seen the “Lauren gets a laptop” commercial.  It was on about six times in a three hour period last night (nothing like having to watch this commercial while my bracket got totally wrecked.) Anyways, if you haven’t seen the ad, here you go.

As you can see, Lauren was looking for a laptop with speed, a comfortable keyboard and a 17″ screen (for under $1000.) While she did get a 17″ laptop, it’s not all that the commercial would have you believe.

I decided this morning to do some research to see what Lauren got. You can go to Best Buy’s web site and find the exact model she picked up for $699 (I guess Lauren doesn’t pay sales tax when she visits Best Buy.) Here’s the low-down on what she got:

• HP Pavillion dv7-1245dx
  • Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
  • 7.8lbs
  • Brown
  • 2.1GHz AMD Turion X2 RM-72 processor
  • 17″ screen (capable of displaying 1440×900 pixels)
  • 1MB L2 Cache Memory
  • 320GB hard drive
  • 8x Dual Layer DVD burner
  • ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics card
  • Built-in modem
  • 10/100 Ethernet
  • 802.11b/g wireless
  • No Bluetooth
  • 4 USB ports (4th port shared with eSATA port)
  • No Firewire ports (IEEE1394)
  • Expected Battery Life of 2.5 hours

What does all this mean? Let’s go at it line by line.

Line 1. Operating System

The laptop is running Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition. According to Microsoft, Home Premium offers:

• Most secure Windows ever
• Quickly find what you need
• Elegant Windows Aero experience
• Best choice for laptops
• Share documents and collaborate
• Use a secondary screen on your mobile PC
• All-in-one media center functionality
• Automatically back up your files
• Easier networking connectivity
• Easily make DVDs
• Have more fun on your PC
• Create high-definition movies

Looking further at this, Home Premium does not offer:

• Protection against hardware failures
• The ability to scan, fax, and receive documents and images
• The ability to remotely access business resources
• Better protection of your date against loss
• Additional programs and features

If you want these added features, you’ll have to pony up $219.95 and get Vista Ultimate.

Line 2. Weight

Now, let’s have a look at the weight – a whopping 7.8 pounds (if you throw in the power brick, the weight jumps over 8 pounds.) Nice. Especially if you’re a student (or anybody who uses a laptop for its mobility.) Have you ever carried around an 8 pound laptop before?

Line 3. Color and Shell Makeup

I’ll leave the color alone, since beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I will mention the shell of the HP is made of plastic, while the similarly sized MacBook Pro (MBP) is aluminum.

Line 4. Processor

The processor runs at 2.1GHz. Not bad, but not exactly a speed demon. The 17″ MBP runs at 2.66GHz. Expect the processor to feel sluggish after a while, especially the way Windows tends to accumulate junk over time.

Line 5. Screen Size and Resolution

What about that screen? All 17 glorious inches of it. Running at the same resolution as my 15″ laptop. Yes, you read that right, my 15″ laptop can display the same resolution as this HP. Expect the HP’s screen to look less than crisp. The MBP display pushes 1920×1200 pixels, enough to display 1080p HD video in its full glory.

Line 6. L2 Cache Memory

According to Best Buy:

Cache Memory – A small segment of memory that stores frequently used information for fast access by the processor, improving response time.

1MB of cache memory may be OK, until you start multi-tasking and have multiple programs open. The 17″ MBP ships with 6MB of L2 cache memory. Multi-task away.

Lines 7 and 8. Hard Drive and DVD Drive

Both of these are typical specs for laptops and I have no beefs with either.

Line 9. Graphics Card

The graphics card in the HP is an integrated card, meaning it pulls memory from the laptop’s main memory. While it is possible to devote up to 1.9GB of memory to the graphics card, that’s 1.9GB less devoted to your programs and Windows. The 17″ MBP has 512MB devoted to the graphics card.

Lines 10 through 13. Networking

We live in a world that revolves around the Internet. Nice of HP to offer slower networking on their laptop. My phone has the same wireless networking as this laptop does and then some (my phone offers 802.11g and Bluetooth.) Theoretical speed over an 802.11g network is 54MB/s. Theoretical speed over the newer 802.11n (found in the MBP) network is 108MB/s. Even if you have to plug in to access the Internet, HP is giving you access to yesterday’s speeds (100MB/s), while the MBP offers 1000MB/s. HP also doesn’t offer Bluetooth on their laptop, so there is no using wireless keyboards or mice, syncing your phone/PDA/headset without forking out more cash for a Bluetooth adapter.

Lines 14 and 15. Ports

It’s nice to see 4 USB ports on a laptop. It’s unfortunate that one of them is shared with eSATA (an ultra-fast connection typically used for hooking external hard drives to your PC.) I will give HP props for having eSATA and 3 USB ports. Unfortunately, there’s no Firewire, so you’re stuck with slower transfer speeds of USB. Firewire is typically used to pull movies off camcorders, but many camcorders offer transfer of your video over USB into the bundled software that comes with your camcorder. Be sure to read up on your camcorder.

Line 16. Expected Battery Life

Notice the word “expected” here. If there’s one variable that is near impossible to measure, it’s battery life. With that said, the HP boasts 2.5 hours of battery life. Not too shabby. Unless you compare it to the 8 hours the 17″ MBP comes with. More battery life, even “expected,” is always better.

The long and the short of it.

Really, this whole thing is comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended.) Yes, the 17″ MBP is expensive. I will admit that. But you get what you pay for. This is a perfect case of that. The one thing left out of this whole comparison is the add ons. Both laptops will need Office, a protection plan, a laptop bag, etc. For the HP, you’ll need to invest in security software (for viruses and spyware.) With that said, I don’t think Lauren did her homework very well to compare the specs with other 17″ laptops, but made out nicely since her laptop was free.

UPDATE:

I should have posted the link to CNET’s review of the HP. Sorry for omitting that. CNET provides some great insight into the laptop as well as provides some real world testing results.