DV6 is in! - mini review

Somehow made it from China to Issaquah, WA (USA) in like two days! Scheduled delivery was not until December 2nd (which was initially the estimated build date).

My worries about it being too huge are not completely to rest, but it is not as bad as I was suspecting. We will see when I get a good charge and take it for a run off the power cord . Here are some of my first impressions...

Good

- I was getting frustrated with the lack of building going on, but in the end I was floored with the process, got it much faster than I expected in the end.

- Overall I am very impressed with the unit's build quality, save one thing (see below). Feels very sturdy, the use of metal is nice (last laptop I had was in the days of plastic).

- So far everything looks very nice, no qualms about the screen.

- Love the options available on the keyboard, quickly turn on/off backlight, etc. I like the fact that they are solid buttons and not some of those lame "touch buttons" people have been using these days.

- Though pretty standard the fingerprint reader is very nice.

- The touchpad is huge, I am going to put that in bad list as well because I constantly find my knuckles dragging along it because I go so far over to the edge. But I suspect as I get used to it, I will like it.

- Keyboard feels nice, not much give, feels solid.

- I want to emphasize the fact that "good" things are going to be hard to find, a laptop is a laptop, on the unboxing there is not going to be much to surprise/shock anyone who has done a little homework .

-EDIT: Just noticed, this sucker is quiet. Could not hear a thing out of it over the fan on my PC several feet away.

Bad

- First thing I noticed was a small blemish on the top cover, like a small scrape. I could not really care less, but I could see where some people would.

- I do not feel very comfortable with the fact that I am on max resolution, though to be fair I knew that going in, and I also know that the resolution is pretty much standard these days, with only a few exceptions in this range.

- Though I would not be surprised if there is a way to disable it, it seems the on/off WiFi button may get pressed accidentally easily, that being said, I was impressed how quickly it snapped back into "on" after pressing it back on (streaming music launched back almost instantly).

- Touchpad is huge (see above).

- Touchpad is definitely bad, I suspect I will get used to it more and more, but I instantly turned both "click" to right-click and use only tap, but it seems to frequently not register (to be fair, I have no intention of using the touchpad outside of a "mobile" basis).

- Keyboard is just awful. Whoever thought putting those buttons on the left side was a good idea is an idiot. They are nice buttons, but should not be there. To be completely fair I am very confident I will get used to this.

- Big and heavy (both things I knew going into it).

- Seems to be getting awfully warm on the left side and a little underneath. Nothing uncomfortable, but we will see when it starts getting heavy usage.

Overall

I hope to be impressed . As a mobile desktop replacement this thing will be great. The specs, coupled with the price, are incredible. I have to admit I took a little bit of a known risk, as my hope was something a little more on the "netbook side," but still serving as a "desktop replacement". If they could cram an ATI 5650 into the DM4 I would not be making this post right now.

I am moving in January though, and have no idea what my usage will be. If I feel the need to buy a cheap little netbook, so be it. As far as my day-to-day usage and "desktop replacement" side goes, I know I have nothing to fear!

I might have to run out and buy Starcraft 2 tomorrow to give a game a whirl .

Let's just hope come the end of January I am not kicking myself for going with the DV6 over the more mobile DM4!

EDIT: BTW I would not have minded a flat-black option. Do not get me wrong, I like the finish. But sometimes it is better when your laptop looks like it is old and worthless . I think laptops should start coming equipped with video- in. The screen is nice enough I would not mind being able to plug an Xbox into it... would potentially save me a purchase of a new TV when I move . Ok, not really a gripe since no one does that, but here is my stand, someone start doing it!

 

how bad is the touchpad!?
oh no, im going to be using the touchpad ALL THE TIME, if its really that bad its a dell xps for me!
Lets hope you're just not used to it yet

 

I would stop at a local store and try them out. Many of the models use the same touchpad- it is the one without actual left/right mouse buttons, they are part of the pad.

That is one of my problems with it.

With lots of use I think you can get used to anything, we will see after a few more days of playing around with it, but I would describe it as use-able, but nothing more.

However, I do love that clockwise/counterclockwise to scroll deal, I am sure that is not an HP-unique thing, but I love it .

 

Here's my experience with the touchpad so far.....

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-...hp-dv6t-select-edition-owners-lounge-441.html

 

Where's the pictures?

 

Pictures? It looks like any other DV6 . May post some though as I admit, I was not happy with the variety of pictures I could find while I was doing my shopping.

Updates...

So far battery life is impressive. Been on for probably 4 hours and at 50%, been very light usage (a lot of just sitting there, it did drop about 10% in 10-20 minutes while updating stuff) but I changed power settings to keep screen on at all times. (Will have more details later, am keeping basic records. Also this is with 9-cell, and btw have yet to have an "estimated time" pop up?)* see edits at bottom

Keyboard is horrendous. I still want to destroy whoever decided to put those darn keys there. Once your fingers are perfectly placed it does not matter much, but as soon as you get disoriented a little bit, or move for the control button, you get lost because, well, I assume I am like everyone else, and base a lot of my finger placement based on the bottom left hand of the keyboard (since traditionally that is always the same!). I still hope to get used to it, but that extra row of keys is just assinine, it makes everything more difficult, and I have yet to even consider using them once!

The touchpad has become quite more usable. Still feel like it is limited, I played about five minutes of CSS for fun, granted that is not the purpose of the touchpad but you could really get a feel for it's poor response (with tap anyway) when trying to fire. I find the actual click to be much too stiff to use it regularly.

Size and weight is growing on me, but it does still feel like too much. Again, depending on my usage though it may be just fine (usage will be changing heavily when I move).

Backlit keyboard is awesome, if I for some reason switch laptops or ever need a new one, it will be a must .

And a final frustration... I wish backlit keyboard could be tied into the power settings. In the dark (with monitor on lowest setting mind you, which is plenty bright), the keys are unusable (that stupid row of buttons makes it MUCH harder mind you) without backlight. While it is super easy to turn on and off with that perfect key, it is easy to forget. I want backlight to auto-off after a minute or something. Would be nice.

EDIT: I do want to hand it to HP. I have done a little shopping around since getting the DV6, and though I can find similar specs for similar cash (well sort of), nothing with the battery life I am getting, and hopefully continue to get (though usage has probably been average to what it will be when battery life will count). EDIT II: Ooops, only been on 3 hours. So if I can eek out 6 hours, 5 assuming steady usage, that is good, but not the excellent I was hoping for (compare to DM4 estimate of 7-8ish?). No idea what the 6-cell will do compared to 9-cell, but if I guess 3ish that gets me about 8 which was my sort of target minimum.

 

You will not get an estimated time of the battery life, you need to invest into a 3rd party into that. Some dumb reason HP implemented that back in dv6 2nd gen...

The batterybar is ok.

I hate to admit it, I found the left quick buttons 'useful'. Just don't get used to them...it just messes you up on normal keyboards.

I like the Dell's XPS backlit keyboards more than HP's because they do have a switch and auto dim/off, plus their touchpad buttons are lit too.
And the the 9 cell, the longest I gone with it was 7.5 hrs. But it dropped to 5 hrs after a month of usage. But then again, I tend to run alot of high cpu usage apps on battery.

 

Stopped at Staples today and pretty much confirmed what I thought.

1) I love my DV6, I hate the size (15.6") and keyboard, and touchpad (less important).

2) I love the DM4, but not a fan of the ATI 54XX, not sure it would be worth the downgrade, but love the keyboard, and the touchpad is much better (they buttons are much more "clickable" but maybe just loosened up from use?) Size is great as well- still pissed they cannot put a 5650 in the DM4!!!

3) I loved the Envy, the 1" size difference does appear to make a difference, the keyboard and touchpad are much better (though not as good as the DM4). But it has the specs. I fear it lacks the battery life though - hell if I could get identical battery life, I would go Envy all the way. Only laptop that lets me get as good of specs (pretty much) in a smaller package.

4) I loved the m11x, and I noticed today that the screen was excellent, much better than the others I think- to be fair this might be due to having the same resolution on a much smaller screen. But I am not sure I could get used to the built in battery. Keyboard is great, touchpad is the best. Worried size is too small, but would almost rather it be too small than too big.

Looks like my three big factors here are size, power, and battery life (keyboard lesser problem). Problem is the DV6 is satisfying two of those, and sort of failing size and keyboard. Anything else forces me to compromise on power and/or battery life, and I am not sure I would be happy with that trade-off. Unfortunately this is a really poor situation, if only I could have two sitting next to each other to try out with my programs and setups, I would be golden .

 

Decided to stick with the DV6, its only competition now is my temptation to send it back and shell out the big money for a Sony Vaio Z with the 13" screen and 1600 x 900 screen. Too many choices!

 

For anyone curious, I had to do it. I played with the Sony at Best Buy and was instantly in love. Went home that night and initiated the return on the DV6, it went back tonight and I purchased the Vaio Z.

I still highly recommend the DV6 and HP, will post a full review soon. (My issues with it were issue with ME, not the laptop- mainly I wanted something smaller, or at the very least higher resolution- I ended up going with both ).

 

Hi JVR,

I have the same problems that you have, i hate the size of DV6t and Touchpad is the worst thing ever. I got this from costco for 499$....with a i3,6gb ram,500gig hdd.

Now, i want to return it and get a no fancy thinkpad t410.

I have never returned anything before so i dont know how this works.
Will they subtract the shipping&Tax that i paid during the refund?

Please let me know how you returned it.

Btw, Howz ur new son VAIO??
Thank you!

 

Costco has the best return policy ever. Not sure how it works for online pruchaes however. I would try and find one you can bring the laptop into.

Generally speaking, taxes will always be returned, shipping normally, is not. Sometimes it is (as in my case with HP). If I had paid HP for shipping (they do free shipping) I would probably not have been refunded that, and I would normally have to pay shipping to send it back in- but HP was very cool about that (automatically covered it, I did not even have to ask).

The Vaio will be here on Wednesday .

 

Thank ou!
And also, How about the EWastage fee? Its not refundable right?

 

No idea, that is only in some areas.