Resources for the Washington DC area

HP Pavilion DV 1321US Laptop Computer

This is a very full featured laptop, which is well suited for watching DVDs. It has a very clear 14 inch "Brightview" monitor which has excellent image quality. The picture quality might be better than your TV.

It has enough power for just about anyone: an Intel Centrino Pentium M 1.6GHZ processor and 512 MB of RAM. It comes with a 60 GB hard drive.

The touchpad for moving the mouse pointer is easy to use. The HP has built in hardware for connecting to wireless networks, so you don't need a separate slide in card.

The DVD drive also can be used to burn CDs.

A "Quickplay" button at the top of the keyboard is very convenient if you want to watch a DVD. One convenient feature is that the "Up" and "down" arrows are located at the bottom right of the keyboard (like most home keyboards). This makes it easy to scroll down a web page without having to move the curser to the scroll bar on the browser and press the right click button. some notebook computers put these keys elsewhere where they not convenient if you use them a lot.

The unit weighs about 5.3 pounds and has a nice quality finish to it. It sells for about $1250, but you may be able to get it for around $1,000 after rebates (as of July 2005).

Since HP and Compaq merged, things have come together and the HP models are very well thought out and represent very good value.

HP has a very extensive lineup of notebook computers, and you can customize their Pavilion dx1000 line online if you want it configured a certain way.