HP DV2000T Review

This is a review for the HP DV2000T, from a student and multimedia enthusiast’s perspective. It is the old version of the DV2000T, not the DV25000t, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have the power to run today’s applications with relative ease.
Reasons for Buying
I bought this notebook for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I needed a personal computer for school, and multimedia. Before this one, I had a Sony Vaio FJ, which was quite nice, design wise, but it was starting to lack in power. The specifications for this laptop are as follows:
Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 2.0GHZ
2GB of DDR2 SDRam at 667MHZ
Intel 802.11B/G with bluetooth
Nvidia GO 7200 128 MB
Light Scribe DVD RW
14.1 Inch Screen WXGA (1280X800)
Windows Vista Ultimate Clean Install
80 GB HD
Microphone+Webcam
Remote Control
Where Purchased
I purchased the notebook from Costco.com, which was a very pleasant experience. I got it about a week earlier than expected, with everything intact, and packed in a big foam padding. It came out to 1,327 Dollars, which was then a very good price for a laptop at that time.
Design and Build Quality
The design of the laptop is quite nice. It is equipped with what HP likes to call a glossy imprint finish. It is quite beautiful, and sturdy to boot. The only downside to this glossy finish is that it attracts fingerprints like a magnet to metal. For the sake of comparison, my Sony Vaio FJ series laptop scratched within 10 minutes of usage, meanwhile, the HP DV2000T has been quite impervious to scratches ever since I bought it 1 year ago. The laptop weighs 5.4 pounds, and is quite light for the power packed inside it. It is relatively thin, at about 1.2 inches.

The build quality is good. The case is made out of sturdy plastic with no flexing, if I pick the laptop up from the corners. The screen doesn’t wobble when moving in a car, but does flex a little.
Screen
The screen on the laptop is nice. It is glossy, so there will be some reflection if viewed in direct sunlight. Right now, writing this review in a car, I can see my reflection, but it isn’t to bothtersome, unless your staring at your reflection. The laptop has a screen with a native resolution of 1280x800. The colors are good, and they pop out quite nicely, with a nice contrast, and great blacks. There is some light leakage at the corners of the screen but that is fine, and isn’t noticeable unless your viewing a pure black image.

There were no dead pixels that came with my laptop.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard is nice, it has a nice tactical response to it, and made a slight “click” when being typed with, it’s nothing that would get disturbing in a quiet room. The PG UP and PG DN keys are placed a little awkwardly, and I have accidentally hit them once or twice. The shift key is also smaller than usual as you can see in the picture, but writing out this review right now, it is very comfortable to use.

The touchpad, on the other hand, can be a bit of a pain to use. It isn’t like a normal touchpad, and requires about a week to break in, because of its glossy nature. After a year of usage, I have grown quite accustomed to it. It seems like it has to get “used” to your finger, like I had to coat it in my skin oils.

Audio
The speakers on the laptop are pretty good. They do their job well, and are better than ,many other laptops speakers, because HP decided to include Altec Lansing speakers with this notebook. They produce good bass, and there is no sound distortion when they are played at their Highest Settings.

Performance
The laptop performs very well, being 1 and a half years old. It’s Intel Core 2 Duo T7200, with 2 GB of ram, blazes through every day applications, and it takes roughly 15 seconds to go from a complete shutdown to the starting up of Windows Vista. I do have a fresh copy of Windows Vista Ultimate by the way. Multitasking with the laptop is a joy. It has no problem keeping up with 10 Firefox pages open at once and Windows Media Player in the background. For the sake of strain, I tried out all these things at once: running Disk Defrag in the background, running a Spyware scan, Having 20 Firefox pages open, Windows Media Player playing, and watching an HDTV video. The laptop did not stutter at all, and was smooth as butter throughout. I really like the performance of this laptop even too this day.

Gaming
Gaming on this laptop can be done, but it is ill advised. It will not run today’s games, but older games can and will run on it, albeit, not at the highest possible settings. I’m using the latest NVIDIA drivers from LaptopVideo2go, I think 165.11. For example, I can run Half Life 2 at all high settings, with no AA and 4x AF on, at 1280x800, and I’ll be getting somewhere in the 40-30’s at all times. No HDR or Bloom or any of that is on. This is quite acceptable for me, seeing as how I had to game on an Intel GMA 950 for a while, and it looks beautiful.
Next up is Unreal Tournament 2004, which can again run at all max settings, except for AA which I always turn off. This laptop simply CANT play any game with AA. Unreal runs at around 40 FPS at all times, and is really fun to play.
Next up, Halo. Halo is quite fun, and runs at max settings at 1024x640. I have it at 30 fps locked, and it seems quite smooth, with dips in frame rates at certain times, when there are HUGE battles going on, or when there is an enclosed area with 20-25 enemies in there, and they are all firing throwing grenades and such.
Counter strike source is another good fun game, and it runs at all high settings, with no HDR or AA, with 4XAF at 1024x768. It never drops below 40 FPS at any one time, with 12 bots playing. I have tried going into a server with 20 people, and it didn’t lag at all, and was really enjoyable.
Prey is another game, which runs off of the doom engine, and runs at all medium settings, at 800x600, with no shadows on, and AF on. It runs pretty well, considering that is entirely enclosed, so no outdoor areas. I have an Xbox 360, and it looks better on that, so I stick to playing games on my Xbox.
In conclusion, I expect games 2 years and older will run okay. The 3DMark 05 score of this laptop is 1658 marks. It can also be over clocked, but I don’t try doing it because I don’t think the performance gains would be nominal. In short, this laptop can be used to play games, with no AA on, and it will run them nicely, if they are 1-2 years old. I have around 6-7 games installed on this laptop, not including steam, which has about 8 games on it too. I’m pleased with the performance, and I realize the DV2500T has an 8400M GS, which I would love to have, but sadly, I can’t, not after only 2 years. I’m going to keep this notebook for a good 6 years, being that I’m very tight on money.
Wireless and Bluetooth
The wireless card in this laptop is good, with a pretty good range. It supports A/B/G wireless networks, and it found my 802.11 G wireless network fine. The Bluetooth was also easy to set up, and I got my cellphone to be recognized easily.
Heat and Noise
The laptop can get very hot when gaming. The touchpad and the whole left side noticeably. The right is cooler, probably due to the fact that the video card is on the left hand side. Other than that, during normal usage, like browsing the internet or multitasking, it is fine. It doesn’t ever get uncomfortably hot, and the keyboard is always cool to the touch.
Battery life
The battery life on the laptop is fine. It probably gets about 1 hour and 40- 2 hours with the brightness down, watching a movie on the HDD, or a DVD.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the HP DV2000T is a great computer. I have had it for about 1 year and a half now, and it is still going strong. I love the performance of the laptop, and it’s gaming capabilities aren’t too shabby either.


This is my review of the HPDV2000T. I will be uploading it in a day or two, with pictures and benchmarks. Just wondering what you guys think of the rough draft.

 

My rant/opinions below before I return mine. Skip if you don't want to read my rambling .

I have a dv2000t that I'm returning tomorrow. When pushing down on the lid (closed) it flexes like crazy in the center. I think the keyboard is awful especially the arrow keys. There's barely any resistance on some of the keys. Even the keyboard on an old inspiron 6400 is better. After several days the glossy screen became more of an annoyance even though the picture was nice. I've come to dislike the glossy touchpad after comparing to a regular one. The usb port casings are loose. Crackling/popping sounds come from the speakers at boot up and shutdown. The <180 angle that the lid opens to is becoming a problem depending on my position. Every time I close the lid I have to be careful not to let it slam down on the base because of the latchless design. It also gets uncomfortably HOT if I were to have it on my lap for a while. Thanks for reading, have a nice day people.

 

Can anyone else review or recommend the HP dv2000? I really like the size and screen... but would like more oppinions.

Thank you in advance.

 

It's a decent notebook that's good on a budget. Since it is an older model, you can find it for cheaper than the current ones because HP is trying to clean out their stock. Unless you're gaming hardcore or doing heavy photoshop/video editing then it should suit your needs just fine. If you're still unsure, go to your local electronics store and look and touch the dv2500t. They both use the same chassis, just different components as in processors and chipsets.

 

I don't get any crackling sound when starting the notebook on. But I do agree with you, that it gets really hot when sitting on your lap. Other than that, I haven't experienced any of the faults you mentioned. It helps to clean the glossy screen. I guess it's personal preference but I like the keyboard. I wish I had the money to but a dv2500t though. So nice, and the graphics card kicks my GPU'S a**.

 

I agree 100%