Review for HP G60-630US Laptop at Office Depot On Sale
I was looking in the Sunday ads yesterday as I’m sure many of you were and I saw Office Depot had the G60-630US HP Laptop on sale for $479.99 or whatever it was. This includes a $50 rebate and $120 off at the store. I searched over and over for G60630US reviews, trying slickdeals and a few other popular review websites but could find no actual user review. Being the pioneer and opting to give back to the web community, I’ll give you my Office Depot HP laptop review.
First of all, this is a solid buy. Once you get the rebate in, you really do save about $150 on what retailers are charging for it. I’m not sure what the laptop weighs but it doesn’t have a heavy anchor feel to it. (by the way, you can find specs easily out there so I won’t repost those). The keyboard is solid and the reason I went with this over the Acer for $399 at Office Max is because someone at SlickDeals.net said something about it’s cheap feeling keyboard and poor mouse touch pad. I had remembered seeing the Acers at Wal-Mart and thinking they were cheap so although it was another pretty good deal on a laptop, I paid $80 more and I’m happy.
The HP does come with a webcam and speaker that the Acer doesn’t, but that’s not what sold me. In fact, I probably won’t even use the webcam or speaker. What the difference makers were was better overall computer model and longer battery. I believe this battery is supposedly up to three hours and thirty minutes or something like that. Tonight is the first night I’ve had it so I don’t have any trial for you.
The screen looks very nice. It’s not awesome, vibrantly colored, but it’s a pretty good display. The computer takes about 3 minutes to completely load to the point where you can browse the web which I’m not a fan of (edit: this was on a restart, since then it has become more along the lines of a minute and a half). Also, the plug-in cord is bulky and will stick about 3 inches out of your computer because it doesn’t have a small end.
The touch mouse pad is pretty good, but I’d like it to be a little bit softer. Good detection and smooth touch and move, but it’s basically like scrolling on the rest of the surface. Nice looking overall computer, not spectacular but for the money it’s pretty good.
I did just have FireFox freeze on me when I tried to open a PDF – might be because I haven’t installed any Adobe software – but otherwise no problems. Got to love the Intel Pentium Dual Core processor and Windows 7 already installed.
It will be interesting to see how it performs over the next month, but so far so good. I’ve been working on it for about 6 hours and it’s not warming up under my wrists. I’ve been using a laptop cushion to keep it comfortably placed on my lap.
To save money, don’t buy the warranty package, Office Depot wanted $200 for this – please don’t buy this, it’s just a horrible proposition. Also, don’t buy Microsoft Office. Instead, install OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org.
I’ll do a lot of work on this around the home and at school (I work from my computer a lot) so I’m interested to see how it performs over the long haul. If I can get 2 years of heavy use out of it, I will be extremely happy. I’m already thinking that buying one of these at $479 price tag (already have the rebate stuff filled out – don’t put this off) vs. buying a MacBook Pro for $1199 is just a tremendous win. We’re talking a new laptop for 60% off the MacBook Pro. Read my MacBook Pro review when I tried it out for a few days.
In conclusion, I say the G60-630US model HP laptop is a very good deal at $479 (again make sure to get the rebate) and I would rate it a 4.1 out of 5 star computer after opening it up out of the box. I rate the deal a 4.3 out of 5 stars with a 5 star deal being a purchase at Black Friday. I had been looking for a laptop for about 3 weeks since Christmas and ultimately this HP model seemed like the best buy for laptops in January 2010. Previously, I had come close to buying one of the great deals on laptops at BestBuy, but didn’t pull the trigger – the purchase just didn’t have enough specs although it was an ok price. Thanks for reading my G60-630US HP laptop review, please leave a comment or review if you made the plunge.
I bought this computer yesterday (after looking for about 3 weeks), too. I’m not very computer savvy, so I’m glad to read a review from someone who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. So far, I like it a lot. It doesn’t blow me away looks-wise, but it’s clean and sleek, and I like the way the keyboard feels. My boyfriend, who’s a Mac person, was really impressed with it, too. Thanks for taking the time to write your review.
Thanks for commenting, Stephanie. I like your assessment. It’s not going to make you say wow, but it is a nice laptop that will do a great job. At under $500, it’s a consumer friendly buy. I’m glad to hear even a Mac user approves.
I’ve tried out the Mac for about 18 hours (I’ll post the link in the post) and although the Mac has some superior features, there are things I actually like about this laptop better. Looking at the price, it’s a no brainer.
I bought the HP G60-630US just over one month ago from Office Depot. A week after we brought it home, it stopped working — would turn on but not start Windows. We exchanged it for the same model, and have been happy with it until now, when this morning I tried to turn it on, and it won’t. It is plugged in to a functioning outlet and the battery is new, so there is no excuse for this but HP’s incredible crappiness. I am very unhappy and frustrated and will not buy anything from HP in the future. Don’t buy HP unless you have a high tolerance for sh**y hardware.
Anyone having trouble with this computer taking 10-12 minutes just to start up? Sometimes, mine comes right to life, but other times, even from “sleep” mode, the screen is dark after I hit a key or the power button. It’s really annoyiny. I sent is back once already after talking to India about 3 hours and the problem was not fixed.