HP DV2 Initial Impressions (Pics 56K warning)

I just bought a DV2-1044CA from Futureshop today. Wasn't even expecting to buy it however I had been anticipating its release since it was announced in january.

A little history on my netbook expereice. I first started with an MSI wind which I liked alot the big selling point at the time was the 10" screen which wasn't quite "standard" on the netbook scene. While I liked the wind I found the keyboard too small to enable quick typing. I had it long enough That I got used to it however it just wasn't cutting it.

I then moved onto an N10J and threw in a 500GB HDD and it was my main computer for about 2 months until I got a desktop, anyhow I loved it mainly becasue it had a nearly full size keyboard. The addition of the 9300M was great for watching HD videos and some light gaming. As it stands I love this notebook however the geek in me always wants to try new things and I couldn't wait to see the response from AMD's side, and this is where I begin with the DV2.

Since I didn't have any experience with benchmarks i'll just start off with what I was expecting with this notebook. With an Athlon Neo and dedicated Radeon 3410 Graphics I was thinking it should have a little more juice compared to the N10J, + the addition of a larger screen would be nice. My intended use for this notebook is to be used away from home as a semi desktop replacement as i'm gone for work most of the time. Hopefully the machine can "replace" my N10J (I"m a die-hard Asus guy)

As i mentioned first off the model is the DV2-1044CA, which must be a canadian only model as I can't find that specific configuration on HP's website for drivers (more on that later).

The configuration is as Follows:

AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 1.6GHZ 512KB Cache
250GB 5400RPM WD Scorpio Blue
1X4096MB Samsung PC2-6400 DDR2
Lilghtscribe Super Multi 8X DVD-RW With Dual Layer Support
Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit) With SP1
HP Media Smart
HP Webcam
12.1" 1200x800 HP Brightview LCD (Glossy) LED backlit
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 512MB DDR2 (Dedicated)
802.11 a/b/g/n Wireless
5 In 1 Digital Media Reader
High capacity 6 Cell Battery

Cost of this model $899 (CAN$)

As you can see, this did not come with the external blu-ray drive although I'm assuming that there is a more expensive model that will include that. It does come with 512MB dedicated VRAM (vs 256 as in the preview model) and it also has a 6 cell battery vs the 4 cell. I was totally amazing that HP included a 4GB memory module especially at this price point, considering how costly 4GB modules are. There is also a 2nd slot for a ram upgrade, I don't have a 2GB module on me but I will be getting one soon to see if it does support more than 4GB (HP states 4GB is the max).

Upon unpacking everything the first thing I noticed is just how this this laptop is. No its not MBA thin but its very thin and the high gloss finish is very nice but as with other notebooks of similar design it is rather prone to finger prints.

I havn't had a ton of time to spend with this notebook but I did run through a few benchmarks I'll post screen shots below but here are the results.

Super PI 1MB = 1:52
3DMark 2001 = 6308
3DMark 2003 = 2876
3DMark 2006 = 1255

I'll tell you right off the bat that these scores are on the low end of what I was expecting, especially when you look at the cpu score in 3DMark 2006 its actually assesed as score lower then an Atom 1.6ghz so I'm not sure the notebook is running at top performance (Vista power saving mode was set to "high performance")

The 3D scores are only synthetic right now and that's all I've had time to test out for now. I tried disabling ATI's powerplay but that actually lowered the scores so that isn't the issue. Once I spend some more time with the machine I'll hopefully iron out whats going on here.

In terms of general usage the Athlon Neo is very responsive and doesn't feel any slower than an Atom based machine, although it doesn't seem noticeably faster either. You'll notice in the CPU-Z screen shot its being detected as an Athlon 4050e similar to the desktop 45W chips (4450e 4850e 5050e)

Heat wise the system stays relatively cool and quiet. The underside even while benchmarking got warm and just warm not hot at all. The palm rests get warm as well but in my opinion not a problem at all.

The keyboard is going to take some getting used to. It's design looks similar to the HP Mini-note ones. I'm just not a fan of completely flat keys with a smooth finish (basically no texture) once again this is only my observation and isn't a deal breaker in my books.

Battery Life

2 hours 5 minutes CPU @ 1.6ghz Full brightness wifi on, external HDD plugged in, lots of heavy use HD vids, mp3's ect(basically worst case scenario)

3 hours 20 minutes CPU @ 800mhz Min brightness wifi on, watching youtube videos and web browsing. CPU was undervolted from stock 1v to 0.675v

Now for the pics (they didn't turn out all that great sorry)





















Sorry for the poor quality of pics and the crappy screen shots, this was sort of rushed but hopefully now some people can get an idea of what to expect with this notebook, so far I love it

Alright here are the GPU Z screen shots:

Powerplay "Max performance"


PowerPlay Maximum Battery


As you can see something isn't right with the powerplay implementation. While it scales back the clock speeds while in battery mode, it never reaches the maximum clocks while under the "maximum performance mode"

Heres where it gets really confusing the following is a shot:

Powerplay disabled


As you can see disabling powerplay dropped the memory speed a bit while keeping the core speed the same.

I have a feeling the GPU-Z reading are accurate as the 3D scores i'm getting are just a bit below(Actually wayy below what they should be) what I was getting with my N10J and i'm sure that this notebook will be far superior in gaming performance than the N10J was, N10J 3D Scores in the link below

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=307678


I've been up most of the night messing around so I think its time to get some sleep and maybe see if I can "overclock" the gpu to stock speeds tomorrow

 

Alright i've had a little bit longer to do some playing around with the system, more specifically playing back some HD content.

I've downloaded a few different movies over the past while encoded in different ways.

I have an IMAX film that is in VC.1 Format 1080P, while running the notebook at full speed 1.6ghz cpu usage is 22-44% no dropped frames. Running the notbook at the speed of 800mhz 64-85% usage with no dropped frames.

Playing a 1080P movie encoded in H264 @ 1.6ghz 16-35% no dropped frames same movie played at 800mhz 45-70% no dropped frames.

I also followed the same procedure with the above movies while running on battery power with the CPU locked @ 800mhz, with ATI powerplay enabled and the results were the same, no dropped frames.

Now my results are not very scientific but I think this shows the NEO cpu along with the Radeon 3410 make a rather attractive mobile media platform. To be honest I didn't expect stutter free playback while on battery @ 800mhz but it did just fine.

I was using Media Player Classic Home Cinema Edition

 

thanks for your initial impressions. i played with the notebook a bit earlier this week. at $899, i agree the pricepoint is attractive for an ultraportable.

 

How does this hold under light gaming????

 

Havn't done much gaming yet, I have fired up Team Fortress Classic and could run 1200x800 4XAA 16X AF with framerates always above 40fps, mostly around the 70fps range. If there are any games anyone would like me to test I can download the demos and try them out.

Only this as mentioned in my post is I can't seem to get the Radeon 3410 to reach its full clock speeds, i'm assuming its a drifver issue of some sort.

 

Thanks for the review, Silvr6, I think I found my next ultra-portable.

 

Me too...I was thinking about an Asus eee pc, either the new one or the 1000he, but I think something a bit better, and as portable would be even better. BTW, I can´t find the laptop in futureshop´s webpage.

 

For those of you wondering about general usage and speed now, the notebook is much faster than my N10J when browsing the web and overall it just feels snappier. I"ve put my own copy of Vista on and didn't install any of the preloaded HP crap. The cpu is basically a single core Athlon 64 running @ 1.6ghz so its not slouch, especially compared to the atom.

I can say if you can deal with the bit of extra size vs an EEE pc you will be rewarded with a very capable machine.

 

Can it watch online HD vids from like youtube without studdering?

 

Has anyone purchased this unit with integrated WWAN from HP?

 

I am not into gaming. That being said, should I look to sell my N10J and buy this? Also, could you post some side by side pics of the two for a comparison?

 

GOMAB2k4, i'm sorry I can't do a side by side comparison I have the N10J all packed up and ready to be sent off to an new owner i'm sorry, I did however take some comparison shots of my DV2 with my dad's XPS M1330, I know its not the same laptop as your but i'll post it anyways.




As for youtube HD videoes sadly it doesn't play them with no stuttering, cpu usage goes right up to 100% and isn't really that watchable, thats too bad.


As for getting rid of your N10 to get this notebook, I guess it all depends on what your uses are, if your not huge into gaming and just browse the net and the like I think the N10 will suit you better. The N10 does have better battery life I know that much, i got over 5 hours on mine.

I also had the chance to test the HDMI output today on a 62" Toshiba 1080P DLP TV, everything worked great including audio through HDMI, very neat having such a small notebook run a huge tv

 

Thanks for the review. I think I've found the ultraportable I want. A much needed upgrade from my 3 year old Acer.

Should this be able to run the Half-Life 2 series decently?

 

Not sure if one should consider this your 'main workhorse'. As a 2nd device for ultra portability....sure looks like its a very solid choice.

 

For right now it is my main computer as I currently don't have a desktop. Its doing well of course a desktop would be much faster but I can live with this one right now.

I'm currently working on undervolting the cpu, and then I'll be doing a max battery run soon enough

 

On futureshop's website I see 1044CA only has a ATI Radeon X1250...

 

Me too, I only see that the card is the integrated Radeon X1250...how come yours has a RADEON HD 3470?????

 

At first glance it looks like a really sturdy and good-looking netbook/sub-par notebook. However, the battery life is nowhere impressive.

 

@ futureshop they have 2 models.

One is:

AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 1.6GHZ 512KB Cache
250GB 5400RPM WD Scorpio Blue
2048MB DDR 2
Vista Basic
12.1" 1200x800 HP Brightview LCD (Glossy) LED backlit
ATI Mobility Radeon X1270
802.11 a/b/g/n Wireless
5 In 1 Digital Media Reader
NO HDMI

Cost of this model $699 (CAN$)

I'm just going by memory on whats included, i'm not sure if the Ram is 2x1Gb or a single 2GB stick, and whether the battey is a 6 cell. It also doesn't have hdmi. It would have been nice if that model had a radeon HD 3200 vs the X1270 and an HDMI port, because I would have bought that. I really wanted the HDMI port.

As for battery life, the 2 hour run I did earlier was pretty much a worst case usage. Currently i'm writing this on battery and will have the results in about 4 hours i'm guessing.

Heres one thing I noticed while working with undervolting last night. In the stock configuration you'll notice in my CPU Z screen shots that the cpu was being run @ 1v @ 1.6ghz, this was also true @ 800mhz, and there was no change in the voltage.

So I fired up RM clock and found that it specified the VID for this CPU in a range from 0.550v to 1.05V

After messing around using orthos as a stress test, I got the cpu stable @ 800mhz using 0.675 anything lower than that and the laptop would either turn off or reboot.



From my unscientific research, it seems the Neo is the same cpu as the Athlon 2650e which has been showing up in some laptops and oem systems, its just in a different form factor to enable a smaller profile. It also has most likely been binned to run at very low voltages although it isn't setup from the factory to take advantage of that.

 

why half the core speed? is it just to squeeze out some extra life of your dv2?

 

Most notebooks scale back the cpu speeds, while on the battery. There isn't a huge decrease in performance while running the cpu at 800mhz, it also allows me to run the cpu at a much lower voltage than stock.

 

i see. i still can't believe the performance decrease isn't huge at half speed. Anyway, i'm getting this notebook as well but i'm waiting for it to appear in bestbuy (i have some store credit with them). I went to the Futureshop in Markham yesterday but they don't have dv2 on display.

Any idea how long can the battery last?

 

Same here as well.

The Thai website stated it lasts 3 hours with that 4 cell battery.

 

Bestbuy owns Futureshop here in Canada. I don't know why Futureshop has it but not Bestbuy.

 

Yes i think i remember them saying 6 hours with wither the 6 or 8 cell(when everyone got there first impressions) The LED screen on this thing is really sharp.

 

I just came from FutureShop at Dundas Square in Toronto, and they've raised the price of the base DV2 to 749.99. Now its just an even better idea to get the 899 model

 

Quick question. Do you have to buy the external dvdrw drive separately?

 

So I was fortunate enough to get my hands on one today. I've been to 3 Futureshops in the Montreal area over the past 2 days. The first one said they only had the 2GB Ram model. The sales guy even took the 4GB demonstrator away. He said he only got one of each yesterday and by lunch time one of them was gone.
At the second store, they only had the 2GB on display and had one in stock. They never got the 4GB. They sell this one for $699 by the way.
I finally got my hands on one of the last ones in the area at the 3rd store today. I wanted the 4GB model. Priced at $899 and comes with the DVD optical drive as expected. This machine is very sleek and is one of the sexiest I have seen. HP hit a homerun on design here.
I failed miserably at trying to like and use my Dell mini 9 netbook. The keyboard is way to too small for me and the screen resolution leaves a lot to be desired on those things.
The dv2 is the perfect compromise. This is exactly what I've been looking for. I've been only on it for 1 hour. Just got her out of the box and started up. This will be a great 2nd or back up machine. I needed a windows laptop as I primarily use Mac for my main pleasures.
Hope some of you get to enjoy the dv2 and can get your hands on one soon.\

 

I

they will soon drop to $449 and $499, no way any current netbook can fetch over $600 . neither quality nor functionality is there yet.

 

i purchased the HP dv2 1044ca last evening. the notebook is equipped with a single-core 1.6GHz Athlon Neo, 1280x800 LED, 4GB RAM, 250GB HDD, ATI Mobility HD3410 (512MB RAM with HDMI 1.2 for transmitting HD video and lossy 5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS), an external DVD read/write drive and Windows Vista SP1 (64-bit). total price is $899 Canadian. here are some screenshots regarding the specs of the notebook. i like the device thus far. i won't be playing any games on the HP dv2; it's mainly used for web browsing and media playback (720p XviD encoded files play quite nicely).

 

Alright so I did a battery run down test, Brightness at the lowest setting (which is very usable) Cpu locked @ 800mhz and undervolted for 0.675v wifi on. Usage was watching youtube videos, chatting on msn and browsing the web.

I got 3:20 at which point the battery life was at 10% Can't say i'm thrilled about the battery life however the extra performance more than makes up for the battery life.

 

should you always wait to run the battery completely dry before recharging again? Is this still a good idea?

 

Fully draining the battery all the time isn't the best thing to do, although lots of people have differing opinions on what is the best method, I usually don't let mine go below 20% before I recharge, but I let it go down on this particular to see how much time I could squeeze out

 

I didn't make any significant adjustments to get the most juice. Left on HP recommended. Got almost 3 hours. Fair I guess. Thought the 6 cell would make a big difference. Guess the guy at FS was right in saying you wouldn't see much of difference.

 

i guess the only thing missing here is bluetooth....but i guess one can get a dongle....
i'm using a BENQ wireless M310 mouse. anyone have any better suggestions for a good wireless mouse offering great battery life...nothing big however, i like to keep it slick and sleek like the dv2...

 

Guys, I just purchased the DV2-1024ca at a Future Shop here in Toronto. I went in to the store just to see it but when I saw how thin it was, I bought it on the spot. Unfortunately, I'm not having a great experience. Internet access by way of the wireless B/G adapter built into this unit is SLLLLOOWWWW!! It is much slower than the Acer Aspire One I owned for a short time and not even close to the access speeds I get with the old Fujitsu Stylistic ST4120 Tablet PC it was meant to replace. The tablet runs at 933MHz, so theoretically the DV2 should be much faster. I've tried everything to improve the speed, including changing settings on my router (WEP, WPA, WPA2, etc.), uninstalling and reinstalling the Broadcom driver and trying both Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.0.8, but other than very small improvements, nothing has really fixed the problem. Any ideas?

 

Thanks for your response. For the most part, I browse the internet, type school papers, and store pictures and music on my N10J. Besides being smaller (I think), I like my N10J because of the quick start program, finger print reader, 3 year warranty, and accidental damage protection.

By the way, is there a size difference between the two (besides 10 inches vs 12 inches)?

 

do you think there would be a difference between 2 GB and 4 GB of RAM?

 

Can somebody please describe how the dv2 performs? Can it smoothly run firefox, word, youtube, watch movies etc? Can it be used as a school pc?

 

Absolutely. The hardware under the hood is capable of doing all the daily tasks you mentioned. If only youtube and other video streaming website enabled hardware acceleration for their flash players... they will eventually. I would suggest looking at the touchsmart tx2z which has better hardware and runst at about 699$ currently and will serve you better for school since you can take notes much easier in tablet mode.

I was having a similar problem with my laptop when running XP. I had 4 OS's installed. The weird thing was that in XP the wireless was much slower (about twice as slow) compared to Vista, Ubuntu, and OS X. So I found that there was a worm that was eating most of my wireless traffic. I can suggest you to do a fresh install of the OS. You can never go wrong with a fresh install.

So, yesterday I saw a very attractive deal for the touchsmart tx2z. Am I the only one in here who thinks that for 699$ the tx2z is a much better choice than the dv2?

 

So it doesnt lag or anything? Because i am seriously considering this laptop as my main pc.

 

Why do you think that a 1.6GHz CPU won't be able to take care of your daily tasks? The only hick-up you may encounter is in very flash-heavy websites.

 

This may be the wrong place to ask, but since you're all interested in the dv2, you may be able to help me. Are there any alternatives to the dv2 in the 12" segment that are under $1000 with intel core 2 duo cpu? I really like the price and form factor of the dv2, but I can't help but think it would be nice to have a little faster cpu.

 

The HP 2230S is such a laptop that may interest you, the build quality isn't up to the same level of the DV2 however it does have the Core 2 Duo P8000 series cpu's

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4660

There is a good review on it.

 

All I need to know is: Can this netbook/notebook play WOW and Guild Wars. I work supporting pharmacies and have a pharmacist offering to get me any netbook that I want. I was looking at the N10J, but this seems to be a bit more powerful.

David

 

I mentioned in my initial review that the notebook had 2 ram slots, I was wrong it has a single ram slot populated by a 4GB module, the other slot appears to be a mini pci-e slot that is free.

 

Now, there is a reason on why this is priced well over $500, a 4GB ram stick is still a bit overpriced right now...

 

Coming soon to a Fry's Electronics near you:

PLU: 5880753
Brand/Model: HP Pavilion dv2-1030us
Price: $799.99 subject to change
Screen: 12.1” Diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
Processor: Athlon Neo MV-40 (1.6 GHz)
RAM: 4GB
Hard Drive: 320GB w/ ProtectSmart hard drive protection
Graphics: ATI Radeon HD3410 w/512MB dedicated
Wireless: 802.11 BGN + Bluetooth
Webcam: Yes
OS: MS Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Multimedia Drive: External LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
Battery: 6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery
Weight: 3.81lbs

Link to HP specs

ETA: April 5, 09

Unfortunately, this model does not appear on the Fry's website yet. Perhaps it will show up this upcoming week.

 

Hmm, I guess mine doesn't have bluetooth. Does anyone know if the mini pci-e slot could be used to put a bluetooth adaptor in it. Can't say i've ever seen a mini pci-e bluetooth adaptor, time to start looking!

 

no bluetooth? errr..... I thought it's standard in DV2.