HP silently upgrades Pavilion dv4t, actually makes it tempting

Shh... don't make too much racket while tweaking the website, else prospective buyers might actually notice that we're upgrading machines! Color us confused, but we can't figure out for the life of us why HP has taken that tactic of late. Within the past few weeks, we've seen not one, not two, but three of its Pavilion laptops get updated with nary a peep from HP itself. This go 'round, the dv4t is getting fitted with a LED-backlit display, Espresso Black and Moonlight White color options, integrated WWAN (Verizon or AT&T), a 500GB HDD and optional NVIDIA GeForce G 105M (512MB) graphics. There's also a Blu-ray option, integrated HDTV tuner and a 12-cell battery to choose from, but we'd only spring for those if money ain't a thang.

[Thanks, Cezar]

[ABZMike Posted Mar 20th 2009 7:42AM]

A mature company renewing the specs of thier products and publishing them on thier website without dropping it for two hours are to be applauded.

[(Unverified) Posted Mar 20th 2009 7:52AM]

agreed

[Chuuchdizzle Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:05AM]

well regardless of how you feel about it, you're still talking about it. hence apple has succeeded in hyping whatever it is they wanna hype. sure it may seem like a cheap tactic, but it works, apple is a hype making machine. the only company I know that can make basic features look like the hottest thing ever.



also to hp, update your tablet PLZ!

[SMB Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:58AM]

Maybe they know that unless it has a fruit logo on it, sites like this one will call the upgrade inadequate or underwhelming.

[High Posted Mar 20th 2009 1:53PM]

... are you talking about dell?? i was trying for a couple of hours when their new netbook came out but it was down.

[CJisohsocool Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:02AM]

The graphics card in it sucks terribly. scored 2200ish on 3dmark05 which is barely higher than Intel's GMA 4500HD

[Teka Posted Mar 20th 2009 9:01AM]

You mean in 3dmark06.

[MisfitOfScience Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:12AM]

Haha you guys gave one of these away not even a month ago.

[Zhurrie Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:39AM]

I recently began working as a system admin for a multinational company that standardizes on HP, and outside of servers this is my first real intro to their laptop lineup (mostly business class). They are simply amazing. Almost every model works with a single standard docking station, ac adapter, batteries etc. across a number of years, their tech support is phenomenal, and battery life with the unique extended battery approaches 24 hours. I balked at first but I'm becoming a convert quickly.

[CJisohsocool Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:41AM]

Battery life 24 hours?

1. What drugs are you taking?
2. May I have some???

[Zhurrie Posted Mar 20th 2009 9:10AM]

Someone beat me to it already CJ. http://www.hp.com/sbso/busproducts_notebooks.html

Your blind hatred for HP is pretty well noted seeing that you have about 8 negative posts in this thread that only consists of about 10 replies. You may want to educate yourself better about a product before bashing so intently. I would have had similar ignorant views just a month or so ago before actually seeing and living the reality of HP gear.

[nuprotocol Posted Mar 20th 2009 9:54AM]

@teasphere

Maybe you should use the search function before you speak.. lol

[TheAngryIntern Posted Mar 20th 2009 4:01PM]

Dell has something similar with their new E series. The internal battery is actually pretty good, but they also have an external "slice" battery that attaches on the bottom to the docking station port. We ordered 5 so our users could take them on long trips and the battery life with both fully charged is like 18 hrs or so. pretty impressive.

[Chuuchdizzle Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:46AM]

@CJ

http://www.engadget.com/2008/09/08/hp-specs-a-24-hour-elitebook-dells-19-hour-mark-hangs-its-head/

[CJisohsocool Posted Mar 20th 2009 8:54AM]

Oh that lol. I thought he was talking about the dv4t

[JeremyBenthem Posted Mar 20th 2009 9:29AM]

You can see someone got a little excited on that left palmrest

[LloydChiro Posted Mar 20th 2009 1:00PM]

LOL.

[north Posted Mar 20th 2009 11:20AM]

Nice - just bought one.
There's a $250 off coupon you can stack on this if you get the cost over $1099
(code NB6513 check fatwallet if I got that wrong)

[Adamd21 Posted Mar 20th 2009 11:50AM]

Very nice HP! Well done!

[mcaron1234 Posted Mar 20th 2009 1:31PM]

How 'bout a link to the laptop Engadget?

[Muddy Posted Mar 20th 2009 4:45PM]

I'm all for companies making a big song and dance about brand new products eg, Sony P. Big Press on day one, we now know it's there, if we want something in that from factor, we know where to look and if it's been upgraded when we do look, great. Adding colours to an mp3 player range doesn't justify hiring a huge hall and inviting all the tech press, saying that something amazing is about to happen.

[FatherDale Posted Mar 20th 2009 9:32PM]

I've bought my last HP notebook. The one I'm typing on now has reasonable performance, but a shiny screen that's useless in daylight (like, I don't know, a PORTABLE computer might be used in), a sticky chicklet keyboard, that dimpled aluminum mousepad that's actually painful to use, and tinytiny function keys that you have to squint at to see. So they got the innards right but paid zero attention to the actual user interface. I'd rather use my wife's EEE 1000HA.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 6th 2009 12:04AM]

I actually do not like this.

[fiq Posted Mar 21st 2009 1:14AM]

(bleep) HP their piece of (bleep) laptop crapped out after a year and three weeks due to a well known defect. Will never buy from HP and I'd suggest you do likewise.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 16th 2009 5:09AM]

I have a HP laptop from the DV9000 series (T5500, Geforce 7600, 2 years old now) and the only big problems i have is the warmth and that the battery is near-dead. Both things can be fixed however. Reflective screen isn't too great too, but i learned to live with it. Overall i think HP's laptops are really good, but MSI and Acer's laptops and their prices are top competitors in becoming my next laptop in the near future. Hope this laptop will live long enough to last me another year or two, while getting a better, higher performance machine.

These laptops look decent but they can't beat Price/Performance right now. Hope HP wises up and drops prices a lot.

- JC