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HP Pavilion dv6-3065ea review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £519
inc VAT

The dv6 is beautifully designed, has reasonable 3D performance and generous features – but there's a catch

The HP Pavilion line was always been classy, and the dv6 is a beautifully designed and built laptop. The lid has a smart engraved pattern, and opens up to reveal a red metallic keyboard panel and glossy black screen bezel. A metallic strip around the edge houses a wide selection of expansion ports, and the entire laptop feels well built.

An AMD Phenom II processor explains the lower than expected price. These budget chips aren’t exactly under-powered, but overall score of 65 lags behind similarly priced laptops with Intel Core i3 chips. The dv6 is far more powerful than a netbook, but about half as fast as a budget desktop PC these days. A dedicated AMD graphics card means you can watch HD videos, it’s almost powerful enough to play 3D games at low quality settings.

HP Pavilion dv6-3065ea left side

A 500GB hard disk provides ample room for your files, and the dv6 has a surprisingly good variety of expansion ports. There are four USB ports, one of which is shared with an eSATA port for fast external hard drives, and a memory card reader for quick photo transfers from your digital camera. HP hasn’t scrimped on the networking either: the LAN port supports Gigabit Ethernet – handy for large backups – and there’s 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth.

HP Pavilion dv6-3065ea right side

There’s an HDMI output as well as an analogue VGA video output, so you could connect the dv6 to a larger screen or even an AV amplifier for the full home cinema experience. Sounds from the internal speakers are bland, with very weak bass and tinny high notes. They’re loud enough for watching YouTube videos, but movies will be lacking.

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Basic Specifications

Rating***
ProcessorAMD Phenom II X3 P820
Processor clock speed1.8GHz
Memory4.00GB
Memory slots2
Memory slots free0
Maximum memory8GB
Size36x378x245mm
Weight2.5kg
SoundIDT HD Audio
Pointing devicetouchpad

Display

Viewable size15.6 in
Native resolution1,366×768
Graphics ProcessorATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470
Graphics/video portsVGA, HDMI
Graphics Memory512MB

Storage

Total storage capacity500GB
Optical drive typeDVD+/-RW +/-DL

Ports and Expansion

USB ports4
Bluetoothyes
Wired network ports1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support802.11b/g/n
PC Card slotsnone
Supported memory cardsSD, MMC, Memory Stick Pro, xD
Other portseSATA (shared with USB socket), minijack audio output, minijack microphone input

Miscellaneous

Carrying caseNo
Operating systemWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore optionrestore partition
Software includedMicrosoft Works, Cyberlink DVD Suite
Optional extras£152

Buying Information

Warrantyone year collect and return
Price£519
Detailswww.hp.co.uk
Supplierhttp://www.digital-fusion.co.uk

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