<!-- Generated by XStandard version 1.7.1.0 on 2006-11-28T10:27:18 -->by Kevin Giberson
The HP Pavilion dv6000t had me intrigued well before I received this review model from HP. First, upon seeing pictures of the dv6000t, I was left thinking that it really did appear to be an exceptionally attractive machine, with its glossy black lid, subtly highlighted by a just-visible pattern of intermingling wavy lines, and a molded silvery bezel surrounding the black keyboard.
Second, every time I glanced at the Most Popular Laptops column on the left-hand side of the NotebookReview.com home page, I saw that the dv6000t was at the top, outperforming the number-two choice by a factor of two or better, and this has been true for some weeks now. Other websites also pay statistical tribute to the commercial success that is the Pavilion dv6000t.
HP Pavilion dv6000t (view large image)The world of 15.4" consumer-oriented notebooks is a well-populated world indeed, but in its design and production of the dv6000t, HPhas managed to come up with a popular notebook that has been provoking buyer interest from the moment it was released, and then impressively sustaining this appeal.
HP dv6000t Specs:
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 (2.16 GHz/4MB L2 Cache)
- OS: Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- Hard Drive: 100 GB SATA @ 5400RPM
- Screen: 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800)
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400, 128 MB Dedicated + 128 MB Shared
- RAM: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM @667 MHz (2 x 512MB)
- Optical Drive: Super Multi 8X DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
- Battery: 6-cell lithium ion
- Wireless: Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11 a/b/g
- Weight: 6.09 lbs.
- Dimensions: 1.0” - 1.69” (H) x 14.05” (W) x 10.12” (D)
- HP Imprint Finish + Microphone + Webcam
- Ports/Slots: 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire); 3 Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0); 5-in-1 memory card reader; VGA monitor out port; S-Video out; RJ-45 Ethernet LAN; RJ-11 modem; ExpressCard 54mm; IR receiver; Expansion Port 3; headphone/speaker jack with SPDIF; microphone
First Impressions
My first in-hand view of the dv6000t really just explained the popularity and fuss. Based upon the components, I knew that it would provide top-notch performance, and the high-gloss finish throughout, together with the rounded corners and tapered height, really did make for a very fetching notebook. I was immediately captivated by the seeming absence of anything at all that might be viewed as a deficiency.
Design and Build
To sum up the design (and also to provide a point of reference), my own tastes in notebooks, on a purely visual level, have tended to lean toward Sony, Asus and Apple (though I'd never buy a white or mostly white laptop), but I like the appearance of the dv6000t as much as any from the fore mentioned manufacturers. Judging from the dv6000t’s wide popularity, I’d say other people like the look, as well.
Because of all these favorable impressions I began to look for something wrong with the dv6000t, and turned my attention to build quality. But even there I could find nothing to complain about. Did this notebook seem as solidly built as the old ThinkPad T40 I used to use? No, it didn't. But the reality is none of the eight or nine consumer and business notebooks I've used since the T40 have seemed quite as solid. I normally use a workstation-class notebook, the Dell Precision M65, and while it's true that the M65 seems somewhat more robust than the dv6000t, the latter notebook is by no means flimsy. There was considerable screen ripple when the LCD lid was pressed very firmly with a finger, indicating some room for lid strengthening, but on the other hand I carried the notebook around with one hand countless times and found no evidence of flex or weakness. In the end, I had only one real issue with this notebook: a higher resolution, such as 1440x900, would have been nice, but only 1280x800 is available. And it did take a fair amount of wiping with a damp, soft cloth to keep the shiny components truly shiny, and free of fingerprints.
A look at the imprint design on the dv6000t (view large image)
Top view of the HP dv6000t (view large image)The Screen
HP Pavilion dv6000t WXGA screen (view large image)The glossy WXGA LCD of this review model was excellent, flawless really, and a pleasure to view. I didn't mind scrolling more than I'm used to because of the lower than I’m used to 1280x800 screen resolution. Except when I was actually doing my nine-to-five-type computing at work, and when I had the choice, I rarely used anything but the dv6000t as a PC during the two weeks that I had it. Since the screen and keyboard are the most important factors for making a notebook something you actually want to use (even after a day of work) that’s kudos for the dv6000t screen.
Graphics
The Nvidia GeForce Go 7400 is a mid-range notebook GPU and should offer plenty of graphics power for most users, including those who plan to upgrade to Windows Vista and turn on all the enhanced visuals. In my opinion, the 7400 (along with its various cousins and competitors) offers a nice mix of price, power consumption and performance. What the Go 7400 won't do is play all the latest games at the highest settings, but the same can be said of all but the most expensive notebooks on the market; a top-level gaming machine will cost double or triple the price of a well-configured dv6000t. There are, however, some very nice laptops at the $1500 to $2000 level (in other words, at least several hundred dollars more than a well-appointed dv6000t), and these will get you to a level just below that of a true gaming machine.
Sound
The built-in Altec Lansing speakers are quite good (with the usual qualifier: “for a notebook”. Clarity is exceptionally strong at high volume, which is where most notebook sound really degrades.
Processor and Performance
This was my first experience with a Core 2 Duo CPU, the T7400 in this case. (Please note: while this review model contains the T7400, the T7200 is the highest available Core 2 Duo CPU when configuring the dv6000t on HP's website at the moment) The T7400 never faltered, happily zipping along while simultaneously scanning for viruses, calculating Pi to 32 million digits, surfing the Internet and editing an OpenOffice.org document or two. This is very similar to my experience with the Core Duo T2X00 processors, which also performed like champs, but the Core 2 Duo will get you 64-bit processing, which will eventually be useful.
Benchmarks
The T7400 took less than a minute to calculate pi to 2 million digits of accuracy, using Super Pi:
Notebook Time HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T2400) 59s Asus V6J (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo) 53s Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo) 1m 02s Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo) 1m 18s Toshiba A100 (2.0GHz Core Duo) 1m 18s Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo) 1m 29s Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86GHz Pentium M) 1m 53s IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz Pentium M) 1m 45s HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+) 2m 02s
Futuremark’s 3DMark05 graphics benchmarking software gave results consistent with a mid-range dedicated GPU:
3DMark05 Comparison Results:
Notebook 3D Mark 05 Results HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) 2,013 3D Marks Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400) 1,791 3D Marks Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB) 4,236 3DMarks Alienware Aurora M-7700(AMD Dual Core FX-60, ATI X1600 256MB) 7,078 3D Marks Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB) 2,092 3D Marks Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI x700 128 MB) 2,530 3D Marks Fujitsu n6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB) 2,273 3DMarks HP Pavilion dv4000 (1.86 GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB) 2,536 3D Marks Dell XPS M1210 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7400 256MB) 2,090 3D Marks
Ditto the 3DMark06 yield:
Notebook 3DMark 06 Results HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) 827 3DMarks Apple MacBook Pro (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 128MB) 1,528 3DMarks Dell Precison M90 (2.16GHz Core Duo, nVidia Quadro FX 1500M) 3,926 3DMarks Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60 Nvidia GeForce Go7800GTX) 4,085 3DMarks Compal HEL80 (2.0GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7600 256MB) 1,654 3DMarks Dell XPS M1710 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia 7900 GTX 512MB) 4,744 3DMarks
As you see, this is no high end video card, but it should perform quite well with older games.
The final Futuremark benchmarking software I ran, PCMark05, resulted in 4234 PCMarks, with the following detail:
Comparison table for PCMark05.
Notebook PCMark05 Score HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) 4,234 PCMarks Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950) 2,994 PCMarks Fujitsu N6410 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400) 3,487 PCMarks Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX) 5,597 PCMarks Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400) 3,637 PCMarks Toshiba Tecra M6 (1.66GHz Intel T2300E, Intel GMA 950) 2,732 PCMarks Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, Nvidia Go 7400) 3,646 PCMarks Sony VAIO FE590 (1.83GHz Core Duo) 3,427 PCMarks
Below are the detailed results from PCMark05:
PCMark05 Detailed Results HDD – XP Startup 6.13 MB/s Physics and 3D 143.22 FPS Transparent Windows 346.05 Windows/s 3D – Pixel Shader 54.47 FPS Web Page Rendering 3.52 Pages/s File Decryption 59.77 MB/s Graphics Memory – 64 Lines 570.97 FPS HDD – General Usage 4.11 MB/s Multithreaded Test 1 / Audio Compression 2353.98 KB/s Multithreaded Test 1 / Video Encoding 395.4 KB/s Multithreaded Test 2 / Text Edit 150.82 Pages/s Multithreaded Test 2 / Image Decompression 30.25 Mpixels/s Multithreaded Test 3 / File Compression 4.24 MB/s Multithreaded Test 3 / File Encryption 46.43 MB/s Multithreaded Test 3 / HDD – Virus Scan 17.64 MB/s Multithreaded Test 3 / Memory Latency – Random 16 MB 8.21 Maccesses/s
Hard drive performance, using HD Tune as the benchmark, was as follows:
Keyboard and Touchpad
HP dv6000t keyboard and touchpad view (view large image)The dv6000t's keyboard was very comfortable with respect to size, layout and the actual pressing of keys, which are really the only things I ask of a keyboard. No complaints here at all. The touchpad worked just fine, too, and can easily be disabled by the press of a button, which some may find convenient. Above the keyboard is a thin line of media controls, blue-lit sensors that can be touched to mute the speakers, adjust their volume, or perform various other media-related functions. These are very handy for a quick mute, say, though they do beep rather loudly and I never bothered to try to disable the beeping. And finally, centered just above the LCD, is a webcam, which I tested and found to be working well enough, though it was a matter of seconds before I tired of looking at myself.
Input and Output Ports
The dv6000t has a good selection of ports that fits its dubbing as a multimedia notebook. Following is a tour around the dv6000t and the ports you get on each side:
Front view: Two headphone line-out ports (one is SPDIF), microphone ports (view large image)
Back view: Just a head vent on the back (view large image)
Right side view: ExpressCard accessory slot, optical drive, USB port, power jack (view large image)
Left side view: S-Video port, VGA / Monitor out port, Expansion Port, Modem and Ethernet ort, 2 USB 2.0 ports, 4-pin FireWire, Media Card Reader (view large image)The two headphone jack feature is nice to have, especially if you want to share music on say a plane or train ride. Having a DVI port would have been a welcome addition in a multimedia notebook, but very few notebooks provide this.
Battery Life
After regular use, the 6-cell battery gave out at just short of two hours, with wireless on and the LCD at maximum brightness. Not great, by any means, but more time could certainly be obtained by taking a couple of minor power-saving measures, and a 12-cell battery, which slightly elevates the back of the notebook, is available.
Heat and Noise
I occasionally noticed the fan running somewhat aggressively, though the dv6000t never seemed all that noisy. As for heat, the left side of the machine, both top and bottom, got warm compared to the right side, but never to the point of being uncomfortable, even during protracted usage in my lap. All in all, the dv6000t performed exceedingly well under various conditions and never generated what I considered excessive heat or noise.
Wireless
The Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 worked just as it should, with no problems.
Service and Support
I was never in touch with HP support regarding this notebook, which presented no problems of any kind. The base warranty is one-year, with the usual assortment of enhancements available at prices ranging from one to several hundred dollars.
Software
Yes, there was a lot of junk software, as is standard on consumer-oriented machines, but performance was always outstanding, startup and shutdown were clean, End Task was never required, no software ever stopped responding, and there were no crashes. I suppose I'm something less than a purist when it comes to Windows installs, but clean, snappy operation is really all I ask.
Conclusion
The HP Pavilion dv6000t is a full-featured multimedia notebook with a highly appealing look. Like all notebook computers, it is an exercise in compromise. What sets it apart from other machines, however, and goes a long way to explaining its popularity, is its impressive blend of looks, performance, comfort and price. At current prices, the dv6000t offers a fine mix of components and performance in the $800 to $1200 range. On top of that, it looks good and provides an exceedingly comfortable computing experience. I know that I, for one, would not have used it nearly as much as I did if it hadn’t given me excellent performance and first-rate comfort during our two weeks together. As I said at the outset, I really did look for something wrong with the dv6000t, but in the end I came up with only three “cons.” Of these, one, the screen resolution, is really a matter of personal preference and won’t make any difference unless a high-resolution LCD is desired; another, the issue of fingerprints, is rather trivial and may actually inspire the owner to keep the notebook nice and clean; and the third problem may be the rather short battery life.
Pros:
- Excellent performance
- Above average looks
- A fine LCD
- Dedicated graphics processing
- Comfortable keyboard
- Stays reasonably cool and quiet
- No obvious build weaknesses
Cons:
- No high resolution options
- Glossy chassis requires a lot of wiping to keep fingerprint-free
- Battery life is around 2 hours
- Some screen rippling when LCD cover is firmly pressed
-
hazel_motes Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer
-
nice review. i rly like the dv6000, personally i like the look way better than that of my dell 6400/e1505. i would have gotten the dv6000 but it was not available in canada, well at least not the customizable kind
-
Wow..excellent multimedia notebook at affordable price. It's a shame HP didn't provide high resolution screen as Dell did.
-
Just out of curiosity, how did the games you tried play?
-
When you look at the Dell e1505 offering versus this HP offering I think a lot of people are going to choose the dv6000t for its superior design. It's just so much better than the Dell with white bumpers look. The specs for the e1505 and HP dv6000t are essentially the same, you can get a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo on both. With the Dell you can max out graphics with an X1400 and with the dv6000t you can max it out as a Go 7400 -- equivalent golf cards in terms of power. Given the pricing is about the same on these competing Dell and HP machines also, I think we can see why HP is gaining notebook sales at the expense of Dell.
-
Hey, great review. I couldn't decide between the e1505 and this one, and you definitely helped. One thing...that first pic, I think that's the DV9000, not the DV6000.
-
1) I think the Dell's Inspiron 6400 / e1505 has a better selection of wireless card. That is they offer Dell n-draft (802.11 n) wireless card which has a higher range compared to 802.11 a/b/g card. Also my observation is that dell card's are better than other wireless cards. I have a Dell Axim Pocket PC and it could detect and connect to wireless signals where my laptop can't ( tried linksys, d-link, orinocco external cards & usb sticks). I think in laptops this feature is important if you live in a multi-story house or if you want to sit outside your house and connect from there. Also it might give you a better browsing experience at hot-spots.
2) From gpu comparisions and advises on notebookreview I gather that ATI X1400 is much better than nVidia 7400.
3) Dell's high screen resolution is another big factor.
4) Longer Battery life in dell.
That said, HP dv6000 has better looks, robustness, ports n periferrals, built-in mic and webcam.
I don't know which of the two has better ergonomics. Ergonomics is important if one uses laptop for hours on daily basis. Somewhere I read that Acer's ergonomics area not that good.
Dell should include built in dual-mic and webcam as standard with no extra cost in its Inspiron series. -
I think bmnotpls pretty much hit it on the head. As pretty as this notebook is, it just falters in some critical categories compared to its equivalent Dell. I really would have liked to buy it, but I'm waiting to see if Dell changes the design of its Inspiron soon.
The screen resolution is a major, major, buzzkill, and by itself guarantees I'll never buy one. 1280 on a 15" screen is just a waste of real estate. There isn't even an option to get a hi-res one. I've taken my Dell apart many times, does anyone know if it would be easy to simply replace the LCD in this HP with a WSXGA+ or WUXGA?.
It's a shame really. If the Dell could improve looks/build quality, or the HP could improve resolution/battery life, either one would completely and utterly dominate the segment. -
chronicfuture12 Notebook Consultant
At last, I have been waiting for a review! Thanks a lot. Still deciding between the HP and Dell due to minor pricing differences and looks.
-
Personally, I like the looks of the HP models moreso than the Dell ones. Even if the price is a little different, I'd find the HP form factor to be worth a little extra $$. Not $$$ though...but I don't think the price difference is that large between the two models.
Andrew: I didn't think that golf involved cards...poker maybe, but not golf. Or is there some new style of the game that I'm missing out on? -
2 hrs battery life should be really unacceptable in this day and age of low-power computing. The Dell with standard battery gets at least 3.5 and up to 5 hours of life on one charge, that's 2.5 times better than the HP. Unfortunately Dell's offering is downright ugly compared to the HP, but otherwise it's a better buy in my opinion: on sale, it can be found cheaper, the X1400 offered is more powerful than the Nvidia 7400, and there are many more options offered, like the above-mentioned WSXGA+ LCD.
-
-
hazel_motes: Did you rip open your DV6000t to replace the T7200 with a T7400? If you did, was it difficult to do?
-
hazel_motes Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer
Thanks for the comment, everyone.
A couple of things. In the relatively low-cost, big-name 15.4" media segment, the e1505 and dv6000t certainly seem like the main notebooks, as has been noted here. I guess the choice between the two isn't altogether obvious. NVIDIA or ATI, 802.11n, resolution, battery life, appearance, built-in camera? Tough call, really. The dv6000t sure looks a lot better, but I can easily see opting for the higher resolution e1505. My own laptop is 1680x1050, though a lot of people seem to find that resolution too high in a 15.4".
I thought I'd mention, too, that I did absolutely nothing to try to maximize battery life. I'm sure it'd be easy to squeeze a lot more time out of the 6-cell.
Anyway, it may all boil down to appearance and screen resolution, though a notebook-savvy user will take all that other stuff into account too, I guess. -
hazel_motes Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer
Just saw the T7400 question.
This was a review model (sort of a pre-release release, I guess) and it came with the T7400. I didn't touch any hardware. -
Ok. For HP. I think they need to add 7200 rpm hard drives, better wireless cards, HIGHER RESOLUTION screens (WSXGA+), fix the screen rippling, better batteries, and offer better graphic cards.
An ASUS A8Js is 14.1" and it has a 7700go (pwned), apple's MBP has X1600, some Acers have X1600...so why not a 7600go at stock speeds or X1600 in a dv6000t? Then the HP would take it all.
It might be a heating issue, i don't know, but with all the things I mentioned, it'd make other 15.4" laptops a run for its money. -
As an employee for Best Buy, we actually carry a "Special Edition". The only thing special is the looks. Instead of having the black cover for the LCD and the black keys, it is instead all white all around (at least the screen's cover + bezel. The rest of the laptop remains its normal colors) and the keyboard is an all polished silver. While the white is nice (less easy to see scratches/fingerprints/dust), what I really do like is the keyboard. I assume because of the paint being glossy and all, the keyboard feels somewhat smoother and more of a pleasure to type. THe downside? It's a Turion X2 T.T.... For those of you that are interested in the special edition, it's model # is the DV6125... and I believe we sell it for about $1000 even
If only they made a Special Edition that had a Core 2 Duo T7200, 2 GB RAM, a 7200 RPM HDD, the 7400 GeForce Go, and a 1440x900 (1680x1050 plz) res... /drool.... But then again that'd probably be a LOT more. (T7200, 2GB RAM, 7400 , LightScribe, 3945 Wireless = ~ $1400 on HP's website).
/sigh...
One thing that did bug me when I had my DV5000... the fan was not directly lined up with the vent on the underside - aka, when you flip the laptop to look on its underside, you do not see the fan through the vent like you would normally see on a laptop. I do not know if that's a good/bad thing or if they've changed it with the DV6000s. But just something that may be interesting. -
Hi guys, great review! It really swayed me to this laptop for my wife. You did mention playing some newer games in your review... but failed to mention how they did. She plays mostly Sims 2, AOE, etc. I'm sure those games will run just fine... do you know how well it plays Doom or Half life 2?
Thanks!
Paul -
I put Half-Life 2 on my dv6000t (2.0ghz, 1g ram, 256 7400), and it ran fine
I run it at 1280x800 with near-full specs (minus the full anti-aliasing), and it ran around 33fps.
In other words, you can play HL2 just as easily as your wife can
play The Sims. -
hazel_motes Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer
To the couple of people who asked specifically about games, actually I didn't play any games, and the review now reflects that.
Thanks, Tru_Slice, for the Half-Life 2 report. That should help people who want to game on the dv6000t. -
I have spent some time playing around with this laptop at local stores, and I agree it is an extremely appealing machine.
However, in my opinion there is one glaring flaw in the design that I find quite annoying. This would be the position of the touchpad in the center of the keyboard area instead of being aligned with the F and J keys, where ideally touchpads should be located. I found it nearly impossible to type on this keyboard without touchpad interference. Even with the touchpad turned off, it is still uncomfortable to type on because part of your hand is resting on the touchpad, not the palm rest. I realize this is not a problem for many people and typing purists would say that your palms should not rest on anything while typing but isn't that why they call it a "palmrest?" HP went for looks (symmetry) over ergonomics on this machine. You will notice that on the dv9000, they took the opposite approach and put the touchpad where it should be.
Say what you want about Dell and their ugly laptops, but they know how to design a good keyboard/touchpad layout.
Another flaw not mentioned is the lack of a PCMCIA card slot. Again, not a problem for many, except those of us who need one. -
Dougd2000 made some good points.
Symmetry wise the touchpad on dv9000 is aligned with F and J keys but is not aligned with the center of screen. So while typing and using touchpad user's hands would be more towards the left of laptop. Do you think that in 17-inch+ widescreen laptop's the manufacturers should offer two options 1) without number pad keyboard, in this the touchpad and the main keyboard will be aligned with center of laptop and 2) keyboard with number pad as seen in dv9000. -
The only people that complain about the touchpad locations are from poeple that don't own one. Looks odd, must admit , but I still want the 6000 or 9000 series models.
-
The specs in the review are not of a configuration one can actually purchase - and I'm not just talking about the T7400 2.16ghz processor:
IF you get the NVidia "real" graphics, you DO NOT get a media card reader, thrid USB port, or Firewire.
These only come with the Intel integrated 950 graphics - click on the 'More info' in HP shopping on the graphics card options:
-
hazel_motes Notebook Consultant NBR Reviewer
Good post, cristalax, because you point out a couple of things that people would probably want to be clear on before buying a dv6000t.
On the website (Overview section), HP has the following:
As for the video card, the review does indicate the VRAM is actually 128+128. This is fairly typical of GPUs referred to as "dedicated," but you're correct that system RAM will be used under certain conditions. -
I guess I was also confused because I am going to purchase only via COSTCO.COM and not HP online, and their customizer is even less descriptive/helpful than at shopping.hp.com (although the price is slightly lower at Costco) - the main reason for ONLY doing it via Costco is their 6-month return policy. I now have an HPDV5xxx that I got at Costco that I must return (and it's more than a month since purchase) because of the awful keyboard problems that are well documented and posted about on this forum and at other sites (keys are pressed but don't register; CAPS lock comes on by itself; and the keyboard gets mixed up causing key presses to do mouse functions, the mouse buttons to get reversed, etc.) I have no faith that HP will ever get this problem fixed - especially since this model (and the DV8xxx which shares the same problem) is no longer in production and the run-around that so many have gotten with no satisfactory resolution to the problem..... -
Does anyone know if it would be possible to upgrade the video card in the future. I know it would be a hassle, but is it possible. If it is possible what do you think I could upgrade it to?
-
I just got the dv6000t with the highest core duo (NOT the core 2 duo) and 2 GB ram and the nvidia go 7400. I tried BF2 and BF 2142 on it and I was initially impressed but then, when I get into heavy firefights where there are a lot of "people" and explosions, etc. there is serious lag making the games unplayable.
The only adjustment I have made is to maintain the aspect ratio so that the 4:3 that those games are restricted to is maintained instead of stretching the image to the edges of the widescreen. I haven't checked (it's at home) the Nvidia performance slider but I would think it is maxed out when plugged in by default.
Settings were all as low as possible (800x600).
I'll test the machine with some other games. I'm optomistic for HL2 since that is much more efficient program than the BF series. Just thought I would post since I really could not find much other info out there.
Any suggestions?
Oh and I got the core duo instead of the core 2 duo because I read that there was no discernable performance improvement in the newer processors and I do not see myself loading a 64 bit OS on this laptop in the future.
Other nit-picks:
I prefer a lid with a latch. The latch-less design requires you use two hands to open the lid.
The keys have very thin letters on them. They may be stylish but they are hard to see!
I prefer to have a tactile border in the mouse pad area so that you can feel when you are in the "scroll-wheel" area.
The web cam does not do well in low light compared to an external logitech web cam I have. I need a lamp or something. W/ the logitech I could use a candle.
A watts up meter found that the machine uses 24 watts when running which is not too bad for such a powerful machine. I dont really care about the battery life since the battery is replaceable for a higher capacity model. The important thing is the power usage.
Testing BF 1942/Desert Combat tonight... -
Well, I purchased the DV6000T via Costco.com custom configuration.....
Disappointed that the speed on this Core2Duo 2.0ghz T7200 seems to be the same - or slower - than the DV5000 with CoreDuo (no 2)/slower processor!
But, my biggest concern right now: when I close the lid of this PC, nothing happens. The LCD screen stays on, and any of the power setting options for what to do when the lid is closed (ie, go to standby or hibernate) are not honored.
I look on HP support site, and the only semi-relevant documents talk about locating the lid actuator switch. This model doesn't have one. A call to HP support gives me conflicting info - this model doesn't have a 'physical' lid actuator switch, it uses a 'sensor' that is not visible/obvious, and they open a case # and want me to call back.....
Just wondering if anyone else has this problem?
I did get rid of a whole bunch of junk that I don't want and have no need for in the PC startup (went from over 50 running processes at startup to under 30) --- perhaps this machine requires an Operating System-dependant software/driver to support the lid sensor (if there really is one)????? -
Hi,
I have taken HP Pavellion Laptop .. But I have some problems with my keyboard ... The special character keys(on top of numbres) are not in order as they are displayed ... I am unable type @ symbol ...
Can anyone give me any suggestion whom to contact about this ...
Thanks in Advance ... -
This comp also has quality issues with the finish. Almost all the paint on the touchpad buttons has peeled off and the palm rest is showing wear or staining.
The hard drive is clicking at random intervals leading me to think it won't last much longer.
HP Pavilion dv6000t with Core 2 Duo Review
Discussion in 'Notebook News and Reviews' started by hazel_motes, Nov 26, 2006.