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Thinking of dv9500t ; your thoughts?

post #1 of 11
6/16/07 at 12:39pm
Thread Starter 
I'm thinking of replacing my desktop PC with an hp laptop. I've always had a small/light laptop for travel, and a beefy desktop for use while I'm at home. Now I want just a single system.

I'm looking at the dv9500t. My needs are as follows:
- Don't care about battery life or size/weight since it will be used 98% of the time at home, on a desk, connected to external kbd/monitor/mouse. Don't care about screen resolution for the same reason.
- Need lots of memory (at least 2GB) for heavy video editing.
- Need 7200 rpm disks for throughput in audio/video editing and processing.
- Don't really care about capacity of internal disks since I'll be using an external firewire RAID array with it also.
- Don't care about Windows, I'm running Linux.
- Play occasional games like Doom 3 and want good performance on maximum settings.

So that's how I use it. Here's what I came up with. Your comments and thoughts please. Any changes you would consider? Any other models I should be looking at? How easy is it to swap out the hard drives in this model?

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post #2 of 11
6/17/07 at 2:57pm
Hey. How did you get that amazing discount of almost 300 dollars before the instant savings?
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post #3 of 11
6/17/07 at 4:59pm
wondering the same
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post #4 of 11
6/17/07 at 11:58pm
Thread Starter 
The discount is because it's the EPP store (Employee Purchase Program).

Edit: Well, I just placed my order. The only change I made was to get the $50 upgrade to the 1680x1050 resolution screen, and I added a 20" 1680x1050 lcd monitor to the order. Should make for an easy x.org config since both screens are the exact same resolution.
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post #5 of 11
6/19/07 at 1:54am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lupin..the..3rd View Post
The discount is because it's the EPP store (Employee Purchase Program).

Edit: Well, I just placed my order. The only change I made was to get the $50 upgrade to the 1680x1050 resolution screen, and I added a 20" 1680x1050 lcd monitor to the order. Should make for an easy x.org config since both screens are the exact same resolution.
I think you are right, it should be easy and it was a great decision also, I have had a very hard time with Vista an external monitors, because I haven't been able to set two different resolutions (one for the laptop's LCD and another for the external), I have to set the two displays with the same resolution.

Is there a way I could get a disccount like the one you got?

I have an HP Pavilion dv4000, this laptop was so great, until it had a littke accident (now it has a broken LCD and a damaged HDD). I would like to replace it with another HP, but I don't have enough money

I convinced my gf to buy an HP laptop (actually, she bought a Compaq, but its the same company) and I always recommend HP printers to my clients, I should get an HP EPP discount
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post #6 of 11
6/19/07 at 3:45pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ericko View Post
I think you are right, it should be easy and it was a great decision also, I have had a very hard time with Vista an external monitors, because I haven't been able to set two different resolutions (one for the laptop's LCD and another for the external), I have to set the two displays with the same resolution.
That's why I kicked Windows to the curb back when 2000 was the hot new thing. Linux works as advertised, Windows advertises but never works. I'm just chuckling at everyone spending thousands of dollars on new PC equipment just to run yet-another-version-of-Windows and go through the driver, service pack, and compatibility hell that that entails! Besides, Linux has had hardware-accelerated desktop 3D effects well before Windows Visduh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYsxaMyFV2Y
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ericko View Post
Is there a way I could get a disccount like the one you got?
Get a job at hp? That's about the only way I know. The EPP allows me to buy two laptops per year and this dv9500t was number 2.
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post #7 of 11
6/19/07 at 9:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lupin..the..3rd
Get a job at hp? That's about the only way I know. The EPP allows me to buy two laptops per year and this dv9500t was number 2.
2 laptops per year? That's awesome! I could wait until january and then you could sell me one of your disccountos for cheap lol.

Anyway, enjoy your new toy!
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post #8 of 11
6/23/07 at 6:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lupin..the..3rd View Post
Well, I just placed my order. The only change I made was to get the $50 upgrade to the 1680x1050 resolution screen, and I added a 20" 1680x1050 lcd monitor to the order. Should make for an easy x.org config since both screens are the exact same resolution.
Do you have a good reason to believe linux will work on this? The only result I found for [linux dv9500] was some guy who couldn't get ubuntu to install on it. I ask because I also want a dual hdd linux laptop, and the dv9500 is a good bit cheaper than the other option I found (Sony Vaio BX670). But at least with the BX EmperorLinux will guarantee ubuntu works on it.
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post #9 of 11
6/23/07 at 6:40pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by jbellis View Post
Do you have a good reason to believe linux will work on this? The only result I found for [linux dv9500] was some guy who couldn't get ubuntu to install on it. I ask because I also want a dual hdd linux laptop, and the dv9500 is a good bit cheaper than the other option I found (Sony Vaio BX670). But at least with the BX EmperorLinux will guarantee ubuntu works on it.
It's supposed to arrive in about 10 days so I'll let you know. But let me put it this way, do you have a good reason to believe linux won't work on it? Linux is known to run quite fine on core 2 duo and santa rosa chipset. Modern laptops use pretty standard components these days, it's not like it was years ago when everything inside most laptops was quirky and proprietary and needed special weirdo drivers. Besides, there are many folks running Linux on the dv9000 and the 9500 is just the santa rosa refresh.
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post #10 of 11
6/30/07 at 6:41pm
Thread Starter 
Pleased to report that Gentoo is running perfectly on the dv9500t with all hardware and components working perfectly. See my post in the "notebooks and linux" forum. I'm even running the two internal disks in a RAID1 mirror. Linux likes the dv9500t.

Edit: Unfortunately, the latest NVIDIA drivers in portage (as of today) are 100.14.09, plus they're hard masked. I installed it anyways but couldn't get it to work. Ended up removing the portage nvidia package and just downloading the latest driver from nvidia.com which is 100.14.11 which is working perfectly for me.
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post #11 of 11
7/2/07 at 2:53pm
Thread Starter 
I put together a Gentoo Linux compatibility page, here:
http://home.earthlink.net/~george164...t/dv9500t.html

and submitted it to linux-laptop.net
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