HP DV600T: Another Pavilion Laptop
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.
Like all the laptops in the HP Pavilion line,
the dv6000's sleek design and shiny finish hold their own next to systems from style-conscious manufacturers such as Apple and Sony. Aside from its good looks, the dv6000 also provides a solid set of entertainment features and high-end components for a fair price. Those components didn't result in record-breaking performance, and its battery life was below average. For these reasons we recommend the Pavilion dv6000 for home users who want a laptop with basic entertainment features and who don't plan to spend a lot of time away from the power outlet.
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.
We reviewed an early version of the HP Pavilion dv6000 that was built on a 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 processor; however, that processor will not be offered on the system initially (for now, the dv6000 will top out with the 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 chip). The rest of our configuration will be available, though: 1GB of fast 667MHz RAM; a 100GB, 5,400rpm hard drive; and an Nvidia GeForce Go 7500 graphics card with 256MB of VRAM. This configuration, with the lower-end 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200.
Optionally available with the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system, the dv6000t is one of the best entertainment notebooks out there. Its Altec Lansing stereo speakers are strong enough for you to enjoy soaring music and exciting action movies without headphones. For listening in private, the notebook comes with dual stereo headphone jacks for you and a friend.
The dv6000t has a pretty typical keyboard. There are 86 standard size keys present, and as you would expect on a laptop, the key travel distance is less than what it would be on a normal keyboard. The keys are near silent when depressed. The dv6000t also has a bunch of function keys, including shortcuts for tasks such as printing, logging off, and brightness control, as well as basic music and video controls. Hot keys that are touch-sensitive for multimedia functions like adjusting volume, rewind or fast forward.
The dv6000t's touchpad is of average size and consists of a scroll pad and two mouse buttons. Like other HP laptops we've reviewed here recently at Laptop Logic, there's an enable/disable button located just above the touchpad. When the touchpad is disabled, there is a red LED that lights up; when the touchpad is enabled, that LED is blue. I have to say that this is a feature that I welcomed with open arms.
