This review is actually for the DV9565 (which I couldn't seem to find) however the specs are almost exactly the same except that the DV9565 came with 2 x 160gb HDD.

I have had this laptop for over a month now, having purchased it directly from the HP website during their post-Christmas sale. On the whole it has so far been a good purchase (touch wood). It is a lot faster than my previous laptop (which was about 4 years old) and has far more disk space than I will ever need at 320gb. I use the laptop purely as a personal computer, mainly for internetting, streaming videos and downloading music and films - for all of these the performance is great. I have wireless broadband which works fine although sometimes the connection is fairly weak - not sure if this is the internal wireless card or if my router is playing up. But as I said, generally it is serving me well and I don't have any major gripes, so don't let the below put you off buying because they are all (in my opinion) minor issues.

Firstly, the mouse pad took me a while to get used to, the buttons are a bit too bouncy and the touchpad a bit sticky, and the mouse does tend to jump around at the tiniest touch. It's also a bit strange and not completely comfortable having the pad so far to one side, esp. if (like me) you do actually use the laptop on your lap a fair amount, as it isn't very easy to balance.

The TV card that came with the laptop is a bit of a joke. I've tried to use it twice, neither time could it pick up a single channel properly. The aerial is weak and the software interface is clunky. However, video streaming sites such as BBCiPlayer and 4oD work perfectly and I have been using these a lot instead.

The webcam is also a bit rubbish: a couple of times it has just completely failed to recognise it without restarting the computer, and again the software (Quickplay, the same as for the TV tuner) is clunky and a bit too over-simplified for my liking.

I chose not to purchase MS Office and am just using Works, which came free with the laptop. The word processing and spreadsheet programmes have fewer features than word and excel but are perfectly functional.

The screen is lovely and big and videos look great on it. The sound quality without speakers is also good and louder than some, which is useful if you don't have speakers to hand (for example if you are using the laptop away from your desk).

Looks-wise, although it is pretty long, it is slim and shiny (in a good way) with a nice swirly pattern on the top. The black keys and blue lights don't look as tacky as some.