New laptop: $1200-ish budget

My current HP Pavilion dv6000t laptop is crapping out on me big time. I've currently resorted to operating in safe mode because there are so many issues, both software and hardware related. The battery has long been non-functional so I am tied down to a power supply. The built-in SD reader has been broken for a year, and the right speaker is blown. Headphone jack works intermittently, and the cpu overheats on a daily basis to the point of nearly burning my thigh. I've performed multiple full re-formats with clean installs but after 6years, this thing is on its last leg.

I've been out of the computer tech game for quite some time, so I need some guidance in selecting a new laptop. Would like to keep the final cost to $1200-$1300. I'd like to stick with HP since I have a 10% discount through my employer.

What I use my laptop for: (in order from most to least)
1) Internet/web surfing
2) Image editing with Lightroom, Photoshop CS5, DPP, etc.
3) CD/DVD burning
4) Word processing

Not using my laptop for video editing or gaming.


Any help is greatly appreciated!!!!!

How about comments between these two options:

Pavilion DV6- $1460
15.6" screen Full HD backlit LED
Win7 Home Premium
i7-3820QM Processor
nVidia 630M 1GB GDDR3
8GB DDR3 RAM
750GB 7200 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive
Blu-Ray Player with Multi-DVD burner
802.1 b/g/n WLAN

Pavilion DV7- $1240
17.3" screen Full HD backlit LED
Win7 Home Premium
i7-3612QM Processor
nVidia 630M 2GB GDDR3
8GB DDR3 RAM
750GB 7200 rpm Hybrid Hard Drive
Multi-DVD burner, no Blu Ray player
802.1 b/g/n WLAN
2yr warranty


P.S. For each customization, I selected the best processor available.

For Image editing you need either an IPS, MVA or PLP screen so the colors are constant with respect to viewing angles. Most laptops out there are TN panels. If you are doing color critical work your options in a laptop go down quite a bit and an external monitor will be easier.

Photo editing software (Adobe) does not really take advantage to more than two cores in a processor unless you are batch processing images.

I use a Lenovo x220T which is pretty nice since its very portable, has excellent battery life and the processor is fast in all the programs I use it for. The screen is a IPS panel with multi touch and a wacom tablet built into the screen. This helps a lot when it comes down to brush adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop. One other feature I really love is the express card slot which I have my compact flash reader that lives in there and the transfer speeds are wonderful (90MB/s)

If you want a larger display than the lenovo x220T you can look into the Sony Se series as that is a 15" notebook that has an IPS display in it and its full HD.

I am actually going through this exercise right now as I need a suitable laptop myself (for similar needs as you). Laptops are tough these days as most have very low resolution (1366x768). Initially I started looking in the $500-700 range, but have come to the conclusion that I would be making too many compromises in that price range. You're budget of $1200 allows for some flexibility.

I think I have decided to double my budget and spend $1200-1300 on a 15" laptop, the Lenovo W530. I too considered the X220/230 as suggested above, but while an IPS display, it seems that color accuracy is not a strong point of the panel, plus that low 1366x768. The W530 is configurable with a FHD 1920x1080 anti glare display with 95% color gamut. With the exception of the IPS panels on the very high end Dell's and the HP Dream line of notebooks, this is the display you want for photo processing. It is a TN panel, but a very high end and consistent panel with excellent color reproduction when calibrated.

I have configured mine with a current promotion and I am sitting at just under $1300 with the below specs:
-i7-3610QM
-15.6" FHD display
-NVIDIA Quadro K1000M Graphics with 2GB DDR3 Memory
-Bluetooth
-500GB HDD
-9Cell battery
-4GB DDR3 RAM

I plan on swapping in a SSD drive I own and moving the 500GB drive to the optical bay, as well as adding 16GB RAM on my own (about $100).

If you can give up some portability and style, this is the best laptop money can buy right now with a great display and awesome, desktop like performance.

I ended up going with the HP dv7. i7 3610, 8gb ram, 160gb SSD, 17IN full HD screen, geforce 650M GDDR5 2GB graphics, WLAN/BT, bluray and dvd writer, MS Office 2010 home & student full functionality, and an empty 2nd drive bay to later add a hdd for storage. Planning to add a HDD immediately, but hold off on adding RAM until I see how things perform. Figured I'd just go with the SSD now and save myself the hassle of transferring Windows to another drive later on.

After an employee discount and a July 4th coupon, I saved almost $600 for a total of $1350 after taxes and shipping.