About to buy a HP laptop. Any last minute advice?

I'm planning on placing an order at an online retailer for a HP dv6285ea (very similar to the US dv6000z) later this evening. Specs: AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 (1.8ghz), 1gb DDR2 RAM, nVidia Geforce Go 7200 (upto 256mb Turbocache), 160gb HD (5,200rpm). It will be running Vista, and cost £636 (including delivery). I mostly want it for Vista, so as long as it will run that well then that's the main thing. So I just have a few questions for HP owners.

1. I'm pretty much certain that it will run Vista Aero, and I doubt that there will be any performance issues, but how well do you think it will run Vista (responsiveness, loading etc.)?

2. I have heard of some models of the Pavilion line making a high pitched noise, it is likely that this model will? Was that mostly with the early production?

3. Should I go out and buy some DVDs as soon as possible for making a set of recovery discs?

4.Are most drivers for Vista sorted out? NVidia seem to have Geforce 7 drivers for Vista, nVidia's drivers for the Go 7200 work fine don't they?

5. I may get a few games from 04/05 for it, and Half Life 2: Episode 1 (uses the engine from HL2, so shouldn't be too demanding). Those sorts of games should run OK (mid-low settings) shouldn't they?

6. Good choice? Recommend it?

Thanks.

 

shudnt have any issues running vista, 2gb wud be ideal but 1gb will be just fine

the high pitch problem occurs in many C2D CPUs but it isnt always noticeable for some and the new bios seems to have helped in that way, dunno if the same goes for AMD CPUs tho

you really only need to do a set of discs if u intend on deleting the recovery partition, otherwise you can wait for a while but its always good to create them just in case.

nvidias drivers are unified so its the same driver for all the geforce 7 models and yeah they seem to be alright so far

not sure about how well itll run games but i dont think you can run mid settings with a 7200 plus vista gaming isnt quite up to par compared to XP so however good or bad it wud run on XP expect to run somewhat worse on Vista

the laptops a good choice for ppl on a budget and yeah the specs are ok so why wudnt it be recommended but the only thing that i wuda done wud be to get the intel C2D, tho the AMDs run perfectly fine afaik

 

Yes I would go out and buy (2) Dual Layer DVDs to burn a set of Recovery DVDs so you can delete your recovery partition and regain like 15 GB of space. Other than that you should be fine.

 

I just want to chime in here real quick to input my experience with the DV6000Z that i had...

Before the Dv6000t that i have now, i had a 6000Z....for about 1 day. i didnt like it at all. I had the 1.8 X2 proc, 1GB ram, and go 7200.

With the stuff i loaded on it for that day, photoshop, etc. it just was not as spiffy as i thought it would be. I did a super pi test, and it was actually 2 seconds SLOWER than my dell 710 m!

I returned it and got my DV6000t, and it is LOADS faster. in feeling and in actual tests. the same 2M super pi test was 1:16!! 40 seconds faster than the X2.
The Dv6000t isnt much more expensive either. plus you get the option for a Go 7400, which will play your games and apps that much better.

Pay more now, get more life out of it in the end.

And about dual layer dvds, i use verbatims, and they're the best dual layer dvd's in my opinion....just be VERY careful with the handling...I use them for my xbox 360 games, and i dropped one on the floor once. i dont know if it hit the ground just right, or maybe this disc was just faulty, but the disc split in two!

Needless to say, with more important information such as a restore disc, you'll want to be VERY careful...

 

Well, it is upgradeable to 2gb RAM, so I may upgrade it in a year or so if it becomes necessary. I'll get a fast SD card for ReadyBoost (2gb SanDisk Extreme III), which should help Vista cope with 1gb RAM.

For games, yeah, I'm not expecting that it will run with mid settings for most of the games from 04/05, and I don't even think I'll bother trying to play FEAR on this system (too demanding), even if I'd like to (I think I may get a powerful desktop once DX10 has settled in).

I'll try it with some of my current PC games that I have for my desktop, like MS Flight Simulator 2004, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft 3 and Call of Duty, which run reasonably well on my system with Win98se , an AMD 1.7ghz CPU, 256 RAM and a nVidia GeForce FX5200 GPU (I didn't choose that card by the way, the old one failed and when I got it repaired this was what it was replaced with, but it is still better than the old one ) , it should at least be able to surpass that old system shouldn't it . Thanks for the replies.

 

I will also add that the go 7400 in the DV6000t plays the games you mentioned VERY well. yes, even fear. there is actually a post in the video card forum here with LOTS of screen shots of plenety of different games.

Personally, i have played: call of duty 2 (maxed) perfect, doom 3 (on high, not ultimate or whatever the very best setting is) ran perfect, quake 4, halo and a few others. i'm very satisfied with the performance of gaming out of this card.
Just dont have it in your head that since its not an integrated card, its equal to a BFG 8800GTX. a lot of people get excited with a dedicated card option, then get disappointed later.

Also, the 6000z i had did NOT have the buzzing problem

 

They are priced differently over here in the UK, if I wanted to get a HP with a similar specification to the dv6000t (which I think has a 2ghz T7200 C2D, 2gb RAM and a Go 7400 as you said) then well, for one with 2gb RAM, Go 7400 but with a Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 instead (1.6ghz compared to 2ghz, and a smaller L2-Cache than the T7200) it would cost £933 (compared to £636). Hell, if I just wanted the same as the one I'm looking at (with a GeForce Go 7200), but with 2gb RAM then that would cost £828, and that even has 40gb less hard drive space than this one! It really seems to be much better value than any other in the HP line or any other Dell, Asus or Sony for that matter (I've checked a load of other manufactures too). Did you take off all the bloat-ware when you got your dv6000z? AMD's don't tend to do very well at the Super Pi tests, from what I've heard.

 

Yes the Uk is way more expensive than the states.

remember if u do upgrade the ram that would mean replacing both sticks in there with new ones. by next year they could be cheaper or more expensive depending on demand for ram and new technologies.

As for readyboost, well its kinda like hit and miss with that, sometimes it works on the fastest stuff and sometimes it doesnt.

In any case you are clearly on a budget and unfortunate enuff to need to buy a laptop in the UK (cuz it could be way cheaper elsewhere if only u or a friend went on a trip to the US or something). the AMD will do a fine job for u as long as u dont care much about what is faster and whose battery lasts the longest.

 

No i didnt take off all of the crapware, i did get rid a lot of it though. a ridiculous amount really. i also took it down from 56 processes, to about 32. it helped tremendously, but like i said, it just didnt have that "feel" i was expecting coming from a 710m which has a 2ghz pentium M.

Thats a pretty big jump in price, so i think i get what you're saying. its still a **** good notebook, just not kicky fast like the 6000t model.

I would definitely load up on ram, and then install a 7200 rpm HD. that will help immensely!

 

Exactly what i was going to say about readyboost! its weird because you dont really know WHEN its going to help. i tried it with a 1 Gb jump drive, and it helped with opening ie, windows media player. they open instantly with readyboost. pretty cool feature i guess.

 

Like I have a 2gb SD card that it doesnt work on. I bought a 2gb imation pocket usb drive and that didnt work! but somehow my (apparently) fake 2gb sony memorystick duo for my psp seems to work although I havent actually tried it yet but it has been tested by vista to work unlike the other two

 

I was looking around with a budget of £800, but this system is almost as good as a lot of systems for that price. Evesham are one of the cheaper well known companies in the UK. The best value I can find with them, as an example, is a system for £868, with an AMD X2 TL-50 (1.6ghz, and half the L-2 cache of the TL-56 in the HP), 1gb RAM, 100gb HD and a Go 7600 GPU. You can upgrade to the AMD TL-56 for £50, but that brings the cost over £900. Anything cheaper has Intel Integrated graphics. £800 gets a system with a T7200 2ghz Core 2 Duo though, but with and integrated graphics (still 1gb RAM).

So I figured that I may as well just go for this and save the money. It should be reasonably fast for general Vista use and spending £800 isn't going to get me a system much better than the HP, and for games it would still be pretty poor with a £800 system.

 

Yeah well for what you want it to do it shud do real well and many ppl dont actually notice the difference in real time use between intel and AMD and even so its not like its gonna be so slow u haveta wake up early in the morning turn on the laptop then come back at night to find vista has loaded lol

 

My tl-60 2ghz x2 will do super-pi in 1:26 which is slower then the Intel but its mostly due to Intel's l2 cache advantage. These benchmarks don't gauge real world performance with extreme precision. In real world applications the difference will not be noticeable. Plus amd has an IMC.