HP Pavilion HDX18-1180US 18.4-Inch Laptop offers expanding on the elegance of the HDX series, the HP HDX 18-1180us delivers in a design that balances performance and mobility. Its elegant Fluid Imprint finish encases leading-edge mobile architectures, including the latest Intel Centrino 2 dual-core processor and NVIDIA GeForce graphics processor. And it’s preloaded with the Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit operating system, enabling you to fully access system memory to support 3D games and complex applications. You’ll also enjoy high-definition video content on the 18.4-inch widescreen HD BrightView Infinity display–which offers true a 16:9 aspect ratio–that’s matched to Altec Lansing speakers with an integrated subwoofer and Dolby Home Theater immersive surround sound.
The HDX laptop features a number of ways to protect your data. HP’s ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection locks your 500 GB hard drive into place when it senses abrupt motion to help prevent data loss. The integrated fingerprint reader offers greater security and ease-of-use by associating passwords to your system and online accounts with unique fingerprints. And the built-in eSATA/USB combo port enables fast backup to an external hard drive.
It’s powered by the latest Intel Core 2 Quad processor–with four processing cores and Centrino 2 technology–which boosts speed, reduces power requirements, and saves on battery life. The 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9000 includes a quick 1066 MHz front-side bus and 6 MB of L2 cache, providing an optimized, multithreaded architecture for improved multimedia and multitasking performance.
It comes with a combo optical drive with Blu-ray Disc playback for watching your favorite films in crystal-clear resolution and SuperMulti DVD burner with LightScribe technology that lets you etch custom, silkscreen-quality labels and artwork directly onto LightScribe-enabled CDs and DVDs. Other features include a 500 GB hard drive, 4 GB of RAM (8 GB maximum), Draft-N Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) and Gigabit Ethernet networking, Bluetooth connectivity, integrated numeric keypad, HDMI audio/video output, multi-format memory card reader, and remote control.
This HP notebook is Energy Star 4.0 certified, and has received a Silver EPEAT designation for meeting standards to help reduce its environmental impact. Additionally, HP exclusive uses of EPA SmartWay carriers for reduced transportation-related emissions. HP’s innovative take-back options include trade-in, recycling and donation.
Helpful consumer’s review
As compared to other laptops at roughly the same price point, this computer is a much, much better deal. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.
I bought this the 1st day it went on sale at Amazon – was literally about to pull the trigger on another laptop, but this popped up new on a final scan, so I bought it instead.
Main features that make it a great buy for the price are:
- A better, faster processor that is also Intel’s latest offering (Quad Core Q9000)
- Lots of memory (4G)
- A bigger hard drive (500G)
- A larger screen (18.4″)
- A Blu-Ray drive (for HD movies)
I wanted a very high performance laptop for under $2,000 – and was especially keen to find something with killer processor speed, a graphics card to drive 2 external HD monitors, and a big laptop screen.
I use the machine for general business purposes, but also most importantly for web development work running Drupal and an Apache development server on the machine, along with big programs like Dreamweaver and Photoshop – all running pretty much at once. I do not use for gaming, but believe it would be great for that, too. I also don’t use so much for video / movies, even though it is heavily designed with that in mind.
I extensively researched machines from Dell, Alienware, Sony, Asus, and other leading vendors (I didn’t want a Mac, so didn’t compare against that). I’m not a hard core techie, but I wanted the best I could buy, so I also looked at the Intel site and their processor specs, visited the geek blogs to get the latest gossip on processor performance, etc.
So far I couldn’t be happier with the machine! It is great. Very, very fast. Laptop screen is large and super high quality. The keyboard is really lovely – very smooth, like silk.
A few notes on things I’ve learned about the machine so far:
- It is a big laptop. That’s probably obvious from the 18.4″ screen, but it is also pretty heavy and the power cord/transformer is bigger and heavier than normal (takes a lot of power to fuel the processor and screen). So while the computer is certainly portable, it sure doesn’t fit in your back pocket. If you are a highly mobile worker, this might be a factor.
- Baseline graphics card will support dual external monitors and/or an HD TV connection. I am currently running 1 external 1680×1050 plus laptop screen, but will be adding 2nd external soon (the cabling for doing this is a bit confusing, but I think I now have it figured out).
- The entire HDX line of laptops is new (introduced Fall ‘08 from what I understand) and there is not yet a complete line-up of accessories available. For instance, I was thinking to get a docking station to configure my monitors, but only docking station that currently works with the machine is the HP QuickDock or xB4 and these do not have digital video/monitor ports (VGA only) which renders them pretty useless if you have high performance monitors. As well, they do not yet sell ‘official’ HP memory upgrades for this machine yet (tech support indicates they probably will later this year, so worth checking if that’s important to you). In the meantime, you can use off-the-shelf memory from Amazon or wherever. Memory is DDR2 800Mhz 200 pin (which isn’t stated anywhere obvious that I saw), but can be switched over to DDR3 if you upgrage to the enhanced graphics card.
- After many painful hours on hold and being routed from one tech support rep to another, I learned that there is a dedicated tech support group for the HDX laptops. For some reason, they provide only the main number in the collateral that comes with the machine – and no one at that number seems to know about this special group. But eventually somebody figured to route me there and I recommend you go there directly. 866-408-5408.
