Laptop Help Needed Before Purchase

I am looking at replacing my current laptop and am wanting your opinion on one I am considering. Staples is running a sale on the following:

http://www.staples.com/office/supp [...] &langId=-1

HP Pavilion dv7-1232nr Entertainment Notebook PC

Processor - AMD Turion X@ RM-74 Dual-Core Mobile Processor

Memory (RAM) - 4GB

Memory Type - DDR2

Memory Expandable to - 8GB

Hard Drive Size - 320GB

Hard Drive Type - SATA

Optical Drive - SuperMulti 8X DVD R/RW with Double Layer Support

Display Size - 17.0"

Display Type - WXGA+ High Definition HP BrightView

Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1

Battery Type - 8-cell Lithium Ion battery

Network Card - 802.11b/g WLAN

Video Graphics - ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics RS780M

Other Ports - 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader

Bluetooth Enabled - No

Dimensions - 15.59 (W) x 11.22 (D) x 1.31 (min H)/1.66 (max H)

Weight - 7.75lbs


My budget is $800-850. This unit is currently on sale for less so it is looking good to me.

I am replacing my HP Pavilion ze2000 laptop (about 2-1/2 years old) that has started to have issues with the USB ports and is very sloooow. It has 512mb of memory and I have been having problems running Office 2007 and surfing the internet. My thoughts are that it would be better to invest in a new laptop now rather than have more memory installed in my current machine.

I also do a lot of things where I have to enter numbers so the numeric keypad is a big plus for me.

Battery life is not much of an issue since I usually have the opportunity to plug it in.

As far as game play just simple games on the internet. I haven't had a problem with my existing laptop and I assume this particular one would be much better.

Will use laptop for internet surfing, watching video on the internet, watch DVD's, playing music, some photo editing, Office 2007. Will want to be able to at least listen to music when I surf the net and/or use Office 2007.

I want to be able to keep this machine for 3+ years.

Thanks for any replies.

Thanks for your help.