*I wrote this review while participating in a program on behalf of HP and received an HP PC, a Snapfish gift card and other items as part of my participation.
What are your plans for the summer? Do you plan on taking your family on vacation?
My family does a lot of “day trips” during the summer. Some might refer to it as a “staycation” since we don’t go far and we’re home every evening. We don’t really have much of a choice. We have a dog, five cats and fish. Two of our cats have medical needs. It would cost a lot to put them all in a kennel, plus hire someone to come to our home and feed our fish.
Because we don’t venture far doesn’t mean that we don’t spend a lot of time traveling in the car. We have been known to drive three hours to our destination and three hours back the same day (we have someone come over to walk our dog and feed our pets).
If you have ever tried to travel with children you know how bored they can get whether it’s a plane ride or car ride. I honestly thought that when my kids got older they would be less bored, especially with their cellphones. They are a bit better about traveling then they used to be as children, but they still get bored. Thank goodness for our HP Pavilion x360.
The HP Pavilion x360 is part laptop, part tablet. I can do anything your laptop or tablet can do including keeping your kids entertained this summer when you are traveling.
We went out of stated for a party recently. It was close to a three hour drive each way. I knew the kids would get bored so I decided to bring the HP Pavilion x360 with us.
I downloaded a few movies on to our x360 for them to watch. I took advantage of the awesome Disney Movies Anywhere app that allows us to download (or stream) our purchased Disney, Pixar and Marvel films. We do have a few other movies that we purchased from iTunes but my kids were rather watch Disney and Pixar flix. “Their movies” (meaning Blu-ray and DVD movies they like) are not downloaded at this time. That is fine. They love Finding Nemo and The Incredibles even though they have seen both films a dozen or more times each.
FYI… The Disney Movies Anywhere app is awesome!
We gave our kids the HP Pavilion x360 to pick out a movie that they wanted to watch. Of course they had to fight over which movie. LOL! I expect that from children, not teenagers.
They didn’t use earphones to listen to the movie. My husband and I listened along (we turned the radio off so we could hear) plus we chatted quietly in the front seat while they watched the movie in the backseat.
Some people might wonder why we’d bring a computer with us to watch movies instead of a tablet or portable DVD player. The HP Pavilion x360 is both a tablet and a laptop in one. My kids forgot that the computer can be positioned in different ways for easy viewing. I’m guilty of that myself. I tend to use it more as a laptop. I think for the sake of watching the movie in the car it was easier to view it as a laptop instead of a tablet.
I prefer this over a portable DVD player too because it does so much more than just play movies and we don’t have to worry about plugging it in or carrying DVDs around with us. We simply make sure we have a full charge and download the movie or movies they want to watch. It’s so much easier and more convenient.
In addition to watching movies my kids were able to listen to music off the HP Pavilion x360. I don’t know if that was a smart idea on our part – we ended up having to listen to a lot of “their” music.
I downloaded a lot of music on to the HP Pavilion x360 because I like to listen to music sometimes when I work from the computer. In all fairness I downloaded some songs that my kids purchased from iTunes too. I wanted to have a good mix of tunes. Since my kids had control over the x360 in the backseat they kept playing the music they wanted to listen to. Apparently they are not into 80’s “hair bands” like my husband and I are. Ha Ha.
The HP Pavilion x360 comes with Beats Audio. We heard the music clearly in the front seat. It actually sounded a bit better than the radio. It was much more clear sounding.
We plan on taking the x360 on another long trip next month (this time I’ll conveniently delete some of the tunes -LOL). We’re going to a Sweet 16 birthday pool party for a relative. Since my cousin has WIFI in his home we can set up the HP Pavilion x360 and stream music for the party goers. It’s much better than using a radio and more portable than a stereo system. Plus we’ll be able to instanly upload photo from the party to share online with other family members who are unable to make it to the party due to distance. I can pop my camera’s memory card directly into the port on the side of the x360 to upload photos instantly. We could even do that in the car on the way home. We just couldn’t share them until we get home since we don’t have Internet service in the car.
I have a nice folder of photos that I plan on uploading to Snapfish to make into a photobook at the end of summer. It’s a beautiful way to preserve previous photos and it’s much nicer than a photo album. Plus the photobooks fit perfectly into the bookcase. We don’t have to worry about finding a place to store big, bulky photo albums.
Photobooks are great too because you can make more than one so you are able to share the photos with family and friends. Or you can upload your favorite photos to Snapfish and turn them into mugs, pillows, wall art or make prints that you can share with others.
Speaking of prints, if you can’t wait to get your prints from Snapfish you could always print them out on your home printer. We have an HP ENVY 5530 e-All-in-One printer which is great for printing out your favorite photos. You can even send them to the printer wirelessly (e-print) making it so easy to quickly enjoy your favorite photos. The quality of the photos that the printer prints out are pretty nice too.
I don’t worry about running our of ink either. My printer is set up with the HP Instant Ink program. My printer “talks” to my computer which in turn notifies HP when I am running low on ink and instantly ships it to my home so I have it handy when I run out. Trust me, that is really handy to have because there is nothing worse than being very excited about printing something out only to realize you are out of ink and have to wait until you can get to the store. Who wants to stop their summer fun to have to make a trip to the office supply store for ink?
Life is too short not to have fun and make memories.
What are your family’s plans for summer? Are you taking “staycations” or are you planning to travel? How do you keep kids occupied during long car trips or flights? Feel free to share your thoughts.
GUESS WHAT? You probably won’t guess so I’ll tell you – I’m giving away an HP Pavilion HP and HP ENVY 5530 e-All-in-One Printer! The giveaway post will be up tomorrow (Monday, June 16, 2014).
Kimberly
Colleen says
I love that laptops are not as expensive as they use to be.