The HP Pavilion dv2500 special edition is your typical lightweight laptop with more features than others provide.  It comes with Windows Vista to keep your laptop more organized.  Built-in webcam which is clear if you have good background lighting; the webcam is integrated with the program Cyberlink YouCam.  The Pavilion dv2500 has 285 GB of local disk space (C: drive) and 12.9 GB of HP Recovery disk space (D: drive).  This is a lot of space for a laptop.  Great for people who like to play games, download music and/or enjoy watching television or movies on their computers.  The only complaint I have in regards to this laptop is the battery.  The battery life is approximately 2 hours.  If you are a traveler, make sure to buy a spare or buy a longer-lasting battery. The HP Pavilion Special Edition is constantly having updates so just keep on top of it and this laptop will be your best friend.  The speed is great as long as you don't have to many programs running in the background.  Maintain a anti-virus protection, such as Norton, on this laptop.  It's worth it. There is one more complaint which tends to cross my mind.  The mouse tends to have a mind of its own sometimes, if cleaniness of the mouse is not maintained.  The laptop's smartkeys above the keypad are very sensitive, especially the volume button.  Beware of the volume button! Other than those few complains, this is the laptop I use and HP has not let me down so far.  Thinking more on the upside, this laptop has the energy star, which is definitely a plus.

cynthiantristan

Brooklyn, NY

I have had the HP Pavilion dv2500t laptop for about 1.5 years and apart from the occasional overheating, this laptop has worked wonder for me. The 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor is fast even by today's standard. The nVidia graphic chip is a major plus if you use a lot of applications at the same time (or open a lot of browser windows), playing games, or watching movies. I don't see a lot of dropped frames during game playing or movie. I use webcam a lot to communicate with friends overseas. The webcam on this laptop is top-notch. The image is bright and clear; the best I've seen in a laptop (I've compared it with other brands.) Microphone is above average. It could be louder though. The laptop has the HDMI port which I use to connect to my HDTV. The difference between the HDMI port and the VGA port is astounding. I can never go back to the VGA. Keyboard has a little flex but nothing major and it doesn't bother me as much. The AC adapter still suffers from the neck-break syndrome (happened on most AC Adapter) and I've had it replaced once due to loose (or broken) wiring on the tip. I gave this laptop a 4 star because of the occasional heating issue. The hard disk and the processor are too warm sometimes to be comfortable on your lap. Other than that, I am happy with every features on this laptop. It's lightweight and a perfect-companion for any travels.

joefiro

San Francisco, CA

I have had this HP laptop for two and a half years now and its just ok.  The laptop can be a little slow sometimes, well a lot of the time.  I am not sure if that is because it is older now or I didn't realize how slow it was when I first purchased it.  After about a year and a half of use the screen started to go black until eventually it would not light up at all and I had to exchange the inverter to get the lights back.  I think that was a little too soon for it to go out on any laptop.  Besides those issues I have never had any problems with my HP laptop.  Now it comes on fine and works for all of my needs.  Because it is a little slow I cannot play any online games with it, but it was a good laptop while I was in school.  However, I have heard mixed reviews about the HP laptops and in the future I don't think I will buy another one.  I think dell might be a better buy for your buck as I have heard they are reliable.

tvilleral

Temple Hills, MD

Nice computer, great features.   But plan to start saving for its replacement soon as you get it out of the box.  Mine broke after 22 months.  HP quotes a repair charge that approaches the cost of a new computer. I'm a technical professional who has used HP products for approximately 40 years.  Based on this experience and problems I have had with other HP products, my sense is this company's grasp on durability is in serious decline from its one-time greatness.

PrairieViking

Cedar Rapids, IA

This computer is reliable. It doesnt have the best memory or gaming capability's but for web use and creating documents it gets the job done. My husband needed a laptop for a tour over seas and it was what we could afford at the time. It lasted a year in the desert but it didn't fair well with our jack Russel terrier. She stepped on it and it broke two buttons off. Jack Russel's don't weigh very much so I was a little disappointed that it couldn't with stand her 12 lbs. The battery isn't very good and you have to leave it plugged in to use it for more than a half hour. I did recently reformat it with the disk provided by hp and it is working like new again other than the battery and it gets very hot sometimes. So hot that it hurts, so if you have children i would keep it out of reach. Its not a bad computer but you get what you pay for and i use it serval hours a day and it stil is working.

ams10187

Marion, IN

Laptop worked great for about 12 months and as soon as warranty ended everything went downhill. Hard-drive crash, disk drive break, driver malfunctions, you name it. I use it for emails, and microsoft office. No gaming. No reason to have such difficult problems with such simple everyday use. Will not buy HP again.

college10

Geneseo, NY

My husband and I originally bought this laptop for him to use at work. At the time it was the best laptop for the money and Apple as not as prominent as it is now. We were happy with it at first but as we added documents and programs it began slowing down a great deal. Then it would get to the place where if you opened to many programs at once it would freeze up and we would have to use Task Manager to close programs that had frozen up. Also as the laptop got older the life of the battery has becom more and more unreliable and unpredictable. For instance one time it may give me a 10% left warning and shut down 20 seconds later when another time it may give an eight percent left warning only to last another 5 minutes. If it does power down due to the battery power running low it is sometimes almost impossible to open back up. The screen will be a complete black and we have to log off, power down for several minutes, reopen, logoff again, and reopen. It is a nice enough laptop if you don't have alot to save or do, but don't get it if you need reliablity.

PaisleyGirl

Powell, TN

hp pavillion notebook has great performance at a grood price.i love the dual headphone jacks so me and a friend could bot listen to music with our own heaphones i dont have to use only the left or only the right side. makes sharing awesome!!

arthemis45

Pacoima, CA

Highly serviceable, with a lot of power for a much older machine.  some problems with the keyboard requiring an external keyboard, but generally good value.  unable to upgrade from windows 2000 however.

bob1leathe

Cleveland, OH