HP Notebooks Vs. Dell Notebooks
In this article we are going to compare 2 very famous and respectable notebook manufacturers that have gained the trust of their customers by offering high quality products at competitive prices. It is pretty hard to compare the general performances of these 2 market leaders so we have decided to take 2 of their most expensive models and see which one survives in the HP notebooks vs. Dell notebooks fight.
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We have chosen 2 notebooks, one from each manufacturer, that are meant for gaming. Gaming notebooks are supposed to have the most powerful components because gamers want to play shooter that require high detailed graphics and good speed which means we need good video card, even better processor plus as much RAM as we can get. We are going to show you the facts and specs of 2 notebooks and in the end we will let you decide who wins this HP notebook vs. Dell notebook episode. That being said, in the left corner we have the one, the only, Dell XPS M1730. If you have not read our past review of this notebook, we are going to go though the specs again just so you can get an idea of the kind of monster we are dealing with. The processor is a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 which is combined with 2 GB of RAM to provide great speed and allow you to do multi tasking without your notebook freezing or giving you constant errors (long live CTRL + ALT + DEL!). As far as video performance goes, this notebook has 2 nVidia GeForce 8700M-GT graphics card with 256 MB of video memory for each. It also has 2 hard drives that provide you with a total of 400 GB of available storage space which is more than enough to store all your favorite games plus any other files, documents, pictures, music, movies and applications that you need.
The 10.6 pounds pointed out that you won’t be able to carry this notebook with you very much. Even if you want to carry it around, you should know that the battery life is not that spectacular so you can’t use this notebook away from a power outlet for too long. Should you want to surf the internet using the wireless function and with the display brightness set at the highest level, your battery will only keep the notebook turned on for about 56 minutes. If you lower the level of brightness on the display and switch off the wireless that you should get about 1 hours and 20 minutes of battery life. Not only is this notebook good for multi tasking but you can also run smoothly some games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3. Aside from the astonishing design of this notebook, you also have an excellent number of ports and connections. This notebook has 4 USB ports, S-Video port, a 5-in-1 card reader, an Express Card slot, a Kensington lock slot, an Ethernet port, DVI, and 2 headphones plus one microphone jack. The starting price of this unit is $2700 but I checked the Dell website and they said this unit is no longer available. I sure hope they haven’t seized the production of such a good gaming laptop.
When we searched the internet for HP gaming notebooks, 4 out of 10 suggestions sent us directly to the HP Pavilion dv7. Now, from what I knew, the Pavilion series was made mostly out of entertainment notebooks but we are going to give the dv7 the benefit of the doubt. The starting price for this notebook is $700 but the unit reviewed is worth $1900. So, the starting price is $2000 lower than that of the Dell XPS M1730. As far as the design goes, it is difficult to compare these 2 notebooks. While the XPS gave us the feeling that we were dealing with some super cool technology, the dv7 looks very elegant and classy. How do you compare beauty and elegance to power? The unit reviewed came with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 processor, 3 GB of RAM with a possibility to upgrade to 4 GB, 400 GB of free disk space and the nVidia GeForce 9600M GT graphics card with 512 MB of video memory.
Even if you may think “look, these two notebook both have the same video memory so they both must have the same performance”, this is definitely not the case. Two graphics card will always work better than one even if they have the same video memory. It’s about the same thing as when you have dual core processors, they will always work better than one with a single core even if the GHz speed is similar. So, the Dell wins in terms of graphic performance. We do like that the dv7 comes with 3 GB of RAM instead of 2 and I find it quite unnecessary to upgrade from 3 to 4 GB. As for the ports and connections, the Pavilion dv7 has 3 USB ports plus a eSata and USB port, a HDMI port, one VGA out, a 5-in-1 media card reader, an Express Card slot, the Ethernet and the modem jacks plus 2 headphones and one microphone port. The competition is pretty tight as you can notice. Except for the graphics card, the HP Pavilion offers some stiff competition to the Dell XPS M1730.
However, the Pavilion dv7 is better for mainstream games and will handle top of the line games with difficulty. You can run games like Crysis and F.E.A.R. with minimum settings but what is the point of playing a good shooter if you can’t enjoy the detailed graphics and good movement of the character?
In our opinion, the Dell XPS beats the Pavilion even if it’s about $1000 more expensive. We don’t wish to influence you in any way to choose between one of these two notebooks because we like Dell products as much as we like HP ones. The choice is up to you.
