A HP Pavilion Notebook: DV600T - By: Asli Mana

Up on the testing bench today for your reading pleasure we have the Pavilion dv6000t, brought to you by HP. Marketed as a mobile entertainment and general use laptop, HP aims to please with this flashy, stylish multimedia notebook. HP's design has come a long way from just a few years ago, and to top it off, the dv6000t boasts some pretty nice hardware inside.

We like the HP Pavilion dv6000's 15.4-inch wide-screen display; its native resolution of 1,280x800 provides ample real estate for work or play. The screen's glossy finish makes colors pop and look brighter, though we noticed a distracting glare when working next to a window on a sunny day; there is an option to bypass the glossy coating if you intend to use the dv6000 in bright environments. Above the display sits a 1.3-megapixel Webcam that's useful for videoconferencing; two built-in microphones on the display bezel eliminate the need for an external microphone.

Measuring 14.05" x 10.12 " x 1- 1.69" and weighing in at 6.09lbs, the dv6000t is still easily portable without skimping on the screen size. You won't break a sweat lugging this laptop to wherever you're going.

All I can say is 'wow'. When I pulled the dv6000t out of the box I wasn't expecting it to look the way it did. Sleek and shiny with a snazzy black wave design on top (HP refers to it as the 'Imprint' finish), this did not look like the previous HP laptops I've seen in the past. My wife had an HP laptop a year or two ago and it was a boring, non-descript hunk of grey plastic. Kudos to HP, they've definitely come a long way in the design department.

That aside, the laptop seemed a bit flimsy in areas, specifically the wrist rests and LCD. They look glossy and stylish, but unfortunately they feel a little too plastic-y, a little too cheap. Another thing about the glossy exterior that left me grumbling is that there is no hiding those messy fingerprints that were all over the dv6000t by the end of the first day of testing. Luckily enough for you, HP includes a screen wiping cloth to get rid of those pesky smears and smudges, which was a nice touch on their part.

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.

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.

About the Author

Asli Mana writes articles about different subjects, including Notebook. To read her articles see her HP Notebook website.

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