One of my favorite things to do is to go to an electronics and gadget store to look around and see what is new.  I usually end up test driving some of the cool technology in the store and love getting lost in the sea of innovative technology.

Recently, I was on one of my usual expeditions to an electronics and gadget store and I was playing around and test driving some PCs when a woman came along looking for a general all purpose laptop that she could use for routine computer tasks and then some.  She commented to me how confused she was as a result of the sea of offerings which were available.  Based on what she described, I decided to help her since I am also into finding out more about different PCs on the market.

She wanted something durable and affordable so that’s what pointed me in the direction of HP laptops which are extremely durable, and that’s when I discovered the HP g60 530us notebook computer.  I spent time going through it and test driving it and the woman appreciated my help so I decided to put my HP g60 530us laptop review into writing so I could help others.

Great Value for Entry Level to Intermediate Laptop

When the lady expressed to me that she wanted the computer so she could email, do general computing tasks, shop online, enjoy a few movies, and network with friends on Facebook and Skype, I found the HP g60 530us had all of the features and ports she needed with the compatible Windows 7 operating system and great technical support from Hewlett-Packard in the event of any questions.  The unit lacked Bluetooth capability due to the Wireless N interface however, you can easily get around this by connecting a Bluetooth adapter to one of the USB ports and it works great with the Windows 7 operating system.

Multimedia and Entertainment

I found the multimedia capability to be quite decent for a laptop for this grade with a 15.6-inch diagonal display with the new 16:9 aspect ratio and HP BrightView 1266 x 768 for exceptional viewing of full-screen HDTV and movies.  There is also an HDMI port for enjoying entertainment on your flat screen HDTV in your living area.  I looked around the accessories though and found the cable is sold separately.  The high definition screen also does not have the HP TouchSmart capability which is present on other HP laptops however the exceptional quality is still great for the price.

The multimedia is supported by a decent 2.1GHz T4300 Intel Pentium Processor with 3GB of DDR2 RAM which is upgradeable to 4GB and an HP g60 530us Intel Graphics Media Accelerator.  The hard drive has plenty of storage space at 320GB SATA so you do not have to worry about multimedia storage slowing down the performance of the HP g60 530us and there is a nifty LightScribe SuperMulti 8x DVD+R/RW with Double Layer Support.  The LightScribe feature allows you to laser-etch your CDs as opposed to using a stick-on label.

One of the nifty features about the HDMI is that both the video and audio capabilities work immediately after you establish a connection through the HDMI port and you can quickly access the display preferences at startup.  This provides you with an additional monitor and then you can change the sound preferences to convert the default output to the HDMI output and create sound over HDMI.

The webcam produces decent quality video and imaging and integrates very well with Skype and other IM programs.  It is very easy to produce a video for upload to your favorite social networking site and you can take still shots at different points of the video with a click of your mouse.

Keyboard and Numeric Keypad

The lady I was helping was also looking for a PC with comfortable keyboard that was not cramped since she would be using the computer as her main unit.  The HP g60 530us has a very comfortable keyboard that is true to a full-sized keyboard and contains a separate numeric keypad which makes it extremely convenient and faster to use when you are conducting numeric calculations.  The key action is also very quiet with each keystroke and makes typing easy and quick.

Additional Software

There is an additional software package which is included with the HP g60 530us some of which is useful and other parts that are junkware you will want to uninstall to improve the performance of the operating system.  However, even with the junkware loaded the PC performance is still very good.

The Verdict

If you are looking for a general purpose laptop that has everything you need plus a little more, then the HP g60 530us is a very worthwhile purchase.  When I checked other feedback I found that experts rate the HP g60 530us notebook computer 56 to 100 with users rating it at 81 to 100.  When the HP g60 530us was compared to other similar laptops on the market experts gave it an 81 to 100 which rates as very good.

If you think this may be the laptop you have been looking for you can obtain further information and a great price by clicking here.