Handing the HP Pavilion dv9000t (Vista) an Editors' Choice six months ago wasn't a difficult decision. It boasted some of the finer things a Media Center laptop can offer, including a gorgeous 17-inch screen, an HD DVD drive, optimized playback software, and a list of A/V features that made your current desktop look prehistoric. The HP Pavilion dv9500t ($1,949 direct) picks up where the dv9000t left off: It delivers the best HD experience for the price, and it's been rejuvenated with a new set of Intel components to keep up with the latest performance trends. On the strength of these two factors, it earns (and retains for the dv9000 series) the Editors' Choice for the Media Center category.

The design and form factor of the dv9000 series has been solid since its inception over a year ago. Its 8.2-pound chassis makes it one of the lightest 17-inch laptops in the business, matching the Sony VAIO VGN-AR590E. The Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch (Core 2 Duo T7700) is the only 17-inch laptop that weighs less than 7 pounds. Still, these 17-inch laptops are typically tethered to your desk and aren't meant for extensive travel.

HP was the first to use a process called in-mold decoration, where graphic overlays are encapsulated between a thin film and the frame, similar to laminating a library card. The design on the dv9500t is what HP calls its "Zen" approach. It consists of wavy patterns decorated on the lid and palm rests, topped off by a piano-black finish. It can attract a significant amount of fingerprints, but like a pair of fine shoes, you can easily polish it with a piece of cloth. Alternatively, the Dell Inspiron 1720 offers a choice of up to eight different color schemes. And, of course, you can bypass the colorful snap-on lids and "Zen" patterns and go with something pristine-looking, such as the aluminum-covered MacBook Pro 17-inch.

One of the dv9500t's main attractions is its 17-inch BrightView screen, which is ideal for editing video, rendering photos, and working in multiple windows. Most of all, you can sit back and watch the latest in high-definition video with the built-in HD DVD-ROM drive. The dv9500t provides a 1,440-by-900 resolution that's good enough for a full-screen 720p experience. You can upgrade to a 1,680-by-1,050 screen (also 720p), but that doesn't improve your HD experience by much. Still, more pixels mean that you have more room and more detail on your screen.

Unfortunately, the dv9500t doesn't come with a 1,920-by-1,200 (1080p) option. This resolution is meaningful for gamers or if you're displaying 1080p content onto a larger screen, such as a 60-inch plasma TV, via the HDMI port. But if you're just viewing HD content on the 17-inch screen, your need for 1080p resolution is not that compelling. The Dell Inspiron 1720 offers 1,920-by-1,200, but it doesn't have an HDMI port or DVI-Out. The MacBook Pro 17-inch has a DVI-Out port, but doesn't offer an option for an HD-compatible drive. That leaves the Sony AR570G, which has both a Blu-ray drive and an HDMI-Out port at 1,920-by-1,200. It even ships with an HDMI cable.

The experience of playing the latest HD DVD titles on the dv9500t's integrated HD DVD-ROM drive—the competing format to Sony's and Dell's Blu-ray option—is flawless using HP's QuickPlay 2.3 software. The HD DVD-ROM can also be used to burn and read single- and dual-layer DVDs, as well as CDs. But you can't use it to burn content to an HD DVD. The good news is that HP now offers an HD DVD burner for $225 extra. I wouldn't recommend upgrading just yet, because HD DVD media, like Blu-ray media, is still insanely expensive.

The system comes with three USB ports, a FireWire port, and a multimedia card reader (SD, xD, MMC, MS, MS Pro). Above the screen, you'll find a 1.3-megapixel webcam. It pales in comparison with the resolution and quality of the MacBook Pro's iSight webcam, but it's more than sufficient for videoconferencing and webcasts. The dv9500t supports a dual hard-drive configuration. The ideal capacity is 320GB, combining both a 120GB and a 200GB hard drive. You can boost capacities up to 400GB ($150), but I wouldn't recommend that, since both those hard drives spin at 4,200 rpm. Dell and Sony also offer dual hard-drive configurations with their 17-inch models, whereas Apple has a single hard drive for the MacBook Pros. The dv9500t doesn't have an internal TV tuner, but I think manufacturers are starting to steer away from that option, as it's expensive and not many people are using it. HP does have an optional TV Tuner ExpressCard available.

With the dv9500t, performance is optimized for HD playback, thanks to Intel's latest Centrino Duo platform. The system runs on a 2.2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor and 2GB of RAM, much as the Dell 1720 does. You can opt for something faster, such as the MacBook Pro 17-inch, which loads a faster-clocked processor (the Core 2 Duo T7700) and 3GB of RAM, but you'd have to be willing to spend $3,799 to do so.

SYSmark 2007 Preview Overall performance scores clearly favor the MacBook Pro and its hard-core components—it beats the HP by 11 percent. But the HP dv9500t edged the Dell 1720 by 7 percent on the same test, despite using similar components. The Dell 1720 does have a slightly faster graphics card in the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT; the dv9500t uses the 8600M GS version. Both cards use nVidia's latest PureVideo engine, so they both are optimized for HD playback, but the Dell 1720 has the performance edge in running 3DMark06, Prey and Company of Heroes gaming benchmark tests.

You typically don't expect great battery life from desktop replacements, but the 3 hours 10 minutes the dv9500t received on MobileMark 2007 is very good for a system of this magnitude. That can get you through a full-length DVD movie assuming it's not Titanic or Lord of the Rings

The race for top honors in the media center category gets closer every time vendors such as Dell, Sony, HP, and Apple refresh their 17-inch laptops. At $1,949, the HP Pavilion dv9500t offers the best bang for the buck when you factor in the HD experience, performance scores, and overall features. The Dell Inspiron 1720 can be purchased for $1,979, but it lacks an HDMI port and doesn't include a Blu-ray drive (for that price, anyway). If the Sony VAIO VGN-AR570 and the Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch weren't so exorbitantly expensive, they would both share HP's crown. But as is, after careful deliberation, the HP Pavilion dv9500t emerges as the winner out of this impressive crop of Media Center laptops.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out the HP Pavilion dv9500t's test scores.

Compare the HP Pavilion dv9500t with several other laptops side by side.