With its high-res 17-inch screen, built-in TV tuner, and Blu-ray drive, the HP Pavilion dv7 ($1,900 as tested) is particularly well suited for rigorous multimedia use. It offers a sleek design and strong performance, bringing a high-end computing experience to people who are willing to spend more to get the best.

Futuristic New Design

The dv7 is one of three new dv-series notebooks to usher in a fresh Pavilion design. Instead of the old Imprint pattern, the onyx lid now has a subtle grid pattern that extends to the keyboard deck. HP’s logo glows brightly in the upper left corner. Inside, the shiny silver deck, keyboard, and chrome speaker strip look and feel futuristic. As we noted with the 15-inch dv5t, the one downside to this new look is that the surface picks up fingerprints easily. At 8.4 pounds, the entire package is about as heavy as we would expect for a 17-incher.

Above the keyboard is the speaker strip, with a smooth touch-sensitive panel above that. The power button and QuickPlay launch key are discrete controls that are visible at all times. Other controls—mute, volume, rewind, play/pause, fast-foward, stop, and Wi-Fi—glow white only when the computer is turned on.

Occasionally, we found the keyboard slippery, but the keys were comfortable for typing and have a bouncy feel. Although we like the quiet touch buttons and the wide orientation of the trackpad, the cursor on our preproduction unit occasionally jumped to parts of documents we weren’t working on.

Display and Sound

The 17-inch display has a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. Although we generally observed good viewing angles from the top and sides, the screen is reflective when the background is dark. We noticed excellent color and sharpness when watching the Rocky Balboa Blu-ray disc (even in the climactic fight scene), but even in High Performance mode, we wished the screen were a bit brighter. The chrome speakers, backed by a subwoofer, produced thunderous sound.

For people interested in watching TV, the dv7 also comes with a built-in TV tuner, an amenity the 18-inch Acer Aspire 8920G doesn’t have yet. The included remote is lightweight, with buttons large enough to press easily, and it stows away neatly on the side of the notebook. When we watched television next to a window, the sound was excellent, but the resolution was pretty mediocre; then again, this was using the included detachable antenna, which is pretty mediocre itself. The tuner receives both analog and digital signals.