HP Pavillion Laptop

I just bought a HP Pavilion g7-2238nr 17.3-Inch Laptop and a Microsoft Office Home & Student 2010 - 3PC/1User (Disc Version) for my aunt.

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This post will just be a rundown of my first impressions of setting up the system.

Physical aspects

• The screen is big and bright.  
• The raised keyboard keys feel solid.  Each key feels like it can only be pressed up and down.  The keys on some other budget-friendly laptops I have tested felt like you could accidentally push a key sideways (if that makes sense).
• The frame looks sleek, but the plastic feels cheap and it will probably feel cheaper over time.
• The track pad has a nice grated texture.  However, given the huge size of the screen, the default mouse sensitivity or speed is too low.  If I start at one end of the screen and slide across the track pad, I can only make it about half way across the monitor before I have reached the end of the track pad. 
• The mouse buttons below the track pad are a little hard to press.  I think this is good as they will probably loosen up over time.
• The cd drive is very loud (as I ran it to install Microsoft Office).

System setup 

• Initial setup was pretty painless.  It probably took a total of 15 minutes.
• I used the express settings, as I often choose default settings anyway.
• Since I am setting this laptop up for my aunt, I did "Sign in without a Microsoft Account".  
• On first loading, there is a little tutorial, which is helpful for any new user to Windows 8.  
• There is a lot of HP bloatware.  About half of the tiles on the windows 8 screen and all of the shortcuts on the desktop are to bloatware programs or links.  One particularly annoying program was the Norton Antivirus program, which kept popping open asking for me to sign up for something.  I eventually uninstalled the program.

Installing Office

• I inserted the installation disk and then entered the product key when prompted.
• After about 10 minutes of installation, I was told to restart the computer, which I did. 
• After the restart, when I clicked on the Microsoft Office icon, the computer asked me if I wanted to install Office.  I thought I had already installed the program, so I'm not sure what's going on. 
• I chose the option to activate my product.  When prompted, I entered the product code again.  I hope this isn't using more than 1 of my product key licenses, but I have no idea how to check.  
• The Microsoft office set up program began running again and it took about 15 minutes again. 
• It then prompted me to restart again. I did, and another status bar began again with the message "Completing Office Setup" and "Do not power off your computer".  It took a few minutes for the computer to shutdown and restart.
• In total, it took me about an hour to install Microsoft Office.

Windows 8

• There has been some criticism about Windows 8, so I won't rehash it or weigh in on whether it is better or worse than the past versions.  I encourage anyone who gets a Windows 8 computer to read through the tutorials in the tile "Navigating in Windows 8".  
• One thing I learned from the Navigating in Windows 8 tutorial is that gestures with a laptop track pad are pretty cool.  Here are some that I would probably use.
• Swipe from the right edge towards the middle to open an options menu, aka "Charms".  
• Swipe from the left edge towards the middle to open the previously used app.
• Slide up/down or left/right with two fingers to scroll the window in any direction.
• Another thing I learned is that you can just press the power button on your computer and Windows should shut down properly.  So you don't have to go to click on any "Shut Down" button anymore.  This may be odd for a newcomer to Windows 8, but it is a very nice improvement.  
• There is a lot more than could be said about Windows 8.  But it isn't specific to this laptop, so I'll just move on.
• I tried a few times and the computer goes from completely off to ready to run in less than 10 seconds.  This might go down as you install more programs, but it's pretty good for now.

Conclusion
Overall, I am happy with this purchase and I think my Aunt will like it.  I imagine that her initial thought will be, "How do I use Windows 8", and she will immediately want to go to the "Desktop" view.

Nevertheless, if you are looking for a cheap laptop with a big screen, I think this is a pretty good option.