HP Pavilion dv9650us Notebook - GS744UA#ABA
HP Pavilion dv9650us Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 1.5GHz Entertaiment Notebook Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 1.5GHz, 2MB L2, 2GB DDR2, 320GB 5400rpm SATA, DVD-ROM SuperMulti, 17.0" WXGA+ BrightView, 5-in-1 Reader, Gigabit NIC, 802.11a/b/g, Vista Home Premium

This is a good computer; with a lot of great features; the built in remote for the media center is great, the camera is surprisingly good, etc. But there are two absolute deal-breaking problems. The first is the placement of the touch pad. Basically they decided to put a full keyboard in the unit; which seems like a good idea. But they've centered the touch pad under the qwerty part of the key board, which seems to make sense, but for whatever reason you're natural instinct is to have your hands just slightly to the right of where HP seems to want them at. The end result is that the my left palm constantly, slightly, grazes the touchpad, causing my cursor point to jump all over the page. I literally cannot type a single sentence without having to stop, delete some text, and replace my cursor. Hp seemed to recognize this problem because they have a button on top of the touch pad that turns it off. This is a terrible solution. The second problem is with the right shift key. Look at any full keyboard on the planet; how big is the right shift key? Like and inch and a half wide, right? Well with this keyboard they shrunk it to a third inch, and put the up arrow right next to it. basically they put the up arrow EXACTLY where 20 years of typing has taught me to hit the right shift. Holy crud; I have literally had to resist the urge to through the computer out the window! Here's my solutions: I got some key remapping software and changed the up arrow key to another right shift key, and for the touch pad issue, I've put a piece of duct tape over the left section, which seems to help a bit. So in conclusion; this is a good computer, with good features, and is a good value; but you have to learn to resist the temptation to through it out the window. If you are a two finger typist then this computer is less annoying. if you are a touch typist with fat fingers; buy some prozac ahead of time.
 
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