HP 2023 17.3” FHD IPS Laptop PC Intel 4-Core i5-1135G7 Iris Xe Graphics 16GB DDR4 512GB NVMe SSD HDMI WiFi AC BT4.2 USB-C Backlit Keyboard Webcam Natural Silver Windows 11 Home…

This is a terrific, fast, and flawless laptop and despite some typing issues (from my perspective) I still give it 4 stars. I dropped one star because i received the laptop April 22, 2022 and according to the HP Support Assistant, the warranty started 10/23/2021 and will expire 11/26/2022!

I’m not crazy about the keyboard design; I call this a minimalist layout because all the keys, except the alphanumeric main keys, are smaller than I’m used to using after 20+ years of laptop use. The keyboard issues only apply when I have to use the laptop without an external keyaboard, which I use at home all the time:

1. The power key sits at the top row of keys, between “prt sc” and “delete”; this seems a disaster waiting to happen, when you hit “power” instead of “delete” for example. Whose bright idea was THAT? Efficiency expert much, HP?

2. To the right of the power key are delete, home, end, pg up, and pg down, a bad arrangement for a touch typist who is used to the old system where those keys were above the Enter key. All those keys are very small, so again, they are prone to mistyping errors.

3. The two Enter keys are very slim; the one on the keyboard on the right is the same size as the + key. Really? Is the + key so important that it needs that large space? I use the keyboard often and I’m finding myself hitting + instead of enter often too.

4. The Num Lock key is not lit, so you don’t know if it is on or not until you start entering numbers on a spreadsheet and see your cursor skirt around the page instead.

5. The Tab key is smaller than the Caps Lock key, which means … yup, you’re more likely to hit Caps Lock or “Q” when you’re trying to tab. (For some odd reason, the right Shift button is longer than the left one.)

6. Ctrl and Alt keys are tiny on the bottom row; the space devoted to an inordinately large touchpad could have been used to enlarge the bottom row keys.

There are good points:

The screen is superb, and the camera and microphone work well for my Zoom classes

I love the two levels of backlighting for the keyboard (above the “4” key on the top row) and I find using the “mute” key (above “5”) convenient when streaming through those annoying YouTube ads.

The layout of the ports is fine; there are only two USB 3 ports but you can dedicate one to a USB extender. I can connect well to my 21inch external monitor through the HDMI port.

20GB RAM boots very quickly and reliably. The entire unit is light and does not run hot (as my older laptop always seemed to do; it is over 10 years old).

I also got Windows 11 Pro, graduating from Windows 7 very easily (I could not stand Windows 8 or10, so I waited, hoping that Microsoft would finally take their anti-psychotic pills and get back to real desktop computing).

I received the laptop very securely packaged and a day earlier than the estimated arrival time. There was no 32GB USB with it, but the seller emailed upon my inquiry, that it was being sent separately by mail; it arrived with a couple of days.