Performs very well, but not quite perfect

• Windows 8 64
• 4th generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ Processor
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M Graphics with 2048MB of dedicated video memory
• 15.6-inch diagonal Full HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1920x1080)
• 16GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 1TB 5400RPM Hybrid Hard Drive
• NO mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
• No Additional Office Software
• Norton Internet Security™ - 15 Months
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
• No Internal DVD or CD Drive
• Backlit Keyboard
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam w/ integrated digital mic
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth®

I upgraded certain components quite a bit, but what HP gives you is a decent start for the price tag. After configuring up the memory (just cheap enough and didn’t wanna bother buying aftermarket memory), gfx card, HD, screen, backlit keyboard, and bluetooth (which is a silly option on a machine of this spec and age), it landed at about $1100, which is better than most of the competition I had checked out at the time.

As far as performance, the machine performs beautifully most of the time and my bottleneck is the hard drive, which was expected. There's no SSD option, although there is an option for an acceleration cache that's solid state, but the hybrid HD has 25GB of SSD space for speeding up, so it's practically the same thing but with 25GB less space. I didn't go for it mostly because the acceleration cache can't handle more than 8GB memory.

The display is fantastic - one of the best I've ever seen. Colors are crisp and the backlight can get pretty bright. The whole thing is a little whitewashed, but I think that can be adjusted for according to personal preference. Touch is a new addition, so it's very gimmicky right now - only really for fun and nothing functional. From what I've noticed, everything I do is faster using the touchpad. One activity that lends itself to touch is reading articles or books, and when needed, its responsive. The backlit keyboard is also nice - never had one before, but it’s a nice change and definitely helps in some situations. I found myself struggling to type on my old computer without a light though, so it did spoil me.

Even given the backlight, the keyboard is my least favorite part of this machine First off, it has a noticeable amount of flex in the center and is very telling of the lack of attention to quality in this one area. Its island style with chiclet keys and is responsive enough, but it can be a pain to get used to typing on it. I have small hands and I play guitar regularly, so they're deft, but I’m still having trouble adjusting to the size of the delete key. I've been trying to get used to using the numpad, but currently it is mostly wasted space for me - I have it set to some shortcuts. But, it's got another bigger delete key, so there's some solace. Another button that is incredibly tiny given my frequency of use is the CTRL key (or keys), which are both smaller than the alt keys. It makes no sense to me - the right one is an annoying challenge to hit without looking. I'm using autohotkey to bind the right ALT to another CTRL key for ease of use. The arrow keys are ridiculously done and incredibly frustrating to use (look at the keyboard layout to see what I mean). And if you use home, end, pgup or pgdown, it’s a nightmare - both to find and hit. The numlock button has no indicator (the wifi and mute buttons have LEDs embedded in them), which makes it significantly more frustrating to use the numpad because it's tricky to tell if you're going to be typing numbers or not.

The speakers sound great - best I've heard on a laptop. They definitely sound bigger than expected, and you can make it quite loud if you use the beats settings correctly. There's a woofer on the bottom and it definitely works as well as one can hope on a laptop of this size. The fingerprint reader is really convenient, BUT there's only ONE way to use it, HP Simplepass software, but its already not supported by the OEM, which is a bit ridiculous and this shows no chance of future updates to increase functionality. The reader is fast and could be very useful, but is limited by software. It's convenient in the limited places you can use it.

The dedicated GPU is alright - it performs most of the time, but I was underwhelmed by game graphics, although they were new high end games I was playing. As far as videos or any media, its flawless in performance. There's an occasional hang-up, but I think that's attributed to Windows 8 and the HD. It comes with 4 USB ports, and three of them is USB 3.0. The touchpad is nicely done and responsive as well, but it's tough to tell the right button from the left, but multi-touch clicking solves that for me. The case is well built aluminum that is very sturdy and doesn't shift at all. Battery life is better than expected, but I'm coming from a machine with a 1st gen quad core processor that worked like a steam engine and lasted 5 minutes. This thing can definitely last over 2 hours while using most or all of the functions.

Besides the new OS hiccups, there is practically no lags in day to day performance. I would definitely recommend this to anyone needing a well-designed machine for medium to heavy computing. I use Matlab, Photoshop, Visual Studio, Dreamweaver, Inventor (CAD) regularly without much trouble at all. And firefox as well, which is probably thanks to the 16GB.

I would caution you to take a look at the keyboard carefully, which can make for some frustrating times, and make sure it won't be a game changer. I’m getting used to it, but still resent HP for the design and plasticky feel. Definitely go for the HD display and the gfx card - they're worth it and make up for other losses. The CPU is very efficient and fast - no heating issues and generally no loss in performance. It could be better, but for the price, I've been very satisfied with the purchase.