HP dv6t 7000 qe mini review

So, I recently purchased a new laptop in the hopes of being able to actually get some 'for fun' programming done at home. My last laptop had a 1.6 GHz Celron and 1.5 GB of ram, which is OK for browsing the web etc, but doesn't work so well for crunching programs. After a few months of research, I decided to get the HP dv6t 7000 qe partially because of the price, the known-name company (as opposed to white label like Eurocom or similar re-sellers with some shady sounding reviews), and it didn't hurt that it came with a 'free' Xbox (since I'm alumnus of a University). It also came with a few upgrades, and I added a few upgrades to it, so the end result is:

• 1080p matte screen - pretty much a required upgrade, the screen is every bit as gorgeous as other reviews say it is. I didn't see the stock screen, but this one is awesome.
• Blu-ray - I don't know how much I'll use it, but it was a free upgrade, so why not
• 8 GB ram - The ram that comes with it is a little slow (not that it's humanly noticeable), but I'll eventually upgrade to 16 GB of the faster stuff.
• 1Tb 5400 rpm HDD - it's really slow, and I'll eventually get a 120-ish GB SSD. The space is nice, but most of the work I do doesn't take up much room and I'd much rather have the speed. I lived off of an 80 GB drive for years, and didn't have too many problems with it (except when I tried to triple boot and have a few VM's... don't ask), so 120 GB would be great.
• Back lit keyboard and on board Bluetooth - fairly cheap upgrades, and I've always wanted a back lit keyboard
• One requirement I had was I wanted a fast processor, and this one came with an Intel Core i7 3610, running at 2.3 GHz, but 'turbos' up to 3.3, quad-core, hyper-threaded. My only worry is that Android emulators have been single-threaded (which would ignore the multi-core, and only rely on single-core clock speed), but I think that's changing
• nVidia GT650m 1GB - From the reviews I've read, the 2 GB version wasn't worth the extra money in nearly every case (including mine), so I didn't get that upgrade
• And finally, the battery upgrade was discounted, so I got the 9-cell battery

The 9-cell battery has been my only regret, not because I don't appreciate the battery life (I haven't had a chance to kill it in one sitting, but it lasts for quite a while). No, my regret is mostly how it looks... It is larger, which is completely understandable, but it 'sticks out' vertically (as opposed to most Dell laptops, which stick out behind the laptop). This means that the laptop sits up off the desk, which probably helps with cooling (it also tilts the keyboard a bit). The downside is that the battery sits off-center, which makes me feel self-conscious about the way it looks (it's dumb, I know, but it is otherwise a very good looking laptop). What I wish is that they had something like HP's Envy line, which has a 'sheet' battery that covers the whole bottom of the laptop, and raises the whole thing up just a tiny bit. The other problem is that it makes finding a case for the laptop hard, because it sticks out. Why is hindsight always 20/20?

Anyway, other than that, I've really liked the laptop. There were some reviews that say that the buttons on the touch pad weren't very good, but I've actually like them. The cover over the Ethernet port is goofy, but I probably won't use it that often anyway, the same with the SD card slot (weird position, but I don't use it much). I've yet to run something that I've noticed kicks on the nVidia card, but other than that, it's just a really fast, nice looking laptop at a decent price point.