HP DV2z Review, My personal POV

Ok, so it is finally here!

This is what I ordered and arrived:
HP Pavilion dv2z Entertainment PC
• • Espresso Black
• • Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
• • AMD Turion(TM) Neo X2 Dual-Core Mobile Processor for Ultrathin Notebooks L625 (1.6 GHz,1MB L2 Cache)
• • 75% OFF!! 4GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm) from 2GB DDR2 System Memory (1 Dimm)
• • FREE Upgrade to 320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• • FREE Upgrade to 512MB ATI Radeon(TM) HD Premium Graphics 3410 - For L625 Processor and Vista Premium
• • 12.1" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
• • Webcam Only
• • Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• • HP Color Matching Keyboard
• • 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• • Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
• • HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
Grand total $668.32

Yes, I did not order the external BlueRay, I just don’t believe in it enough so that can justify 150$ extra, I have my own external DVD drive that I am going to use for all the additional installations.

Some pictures from the un boxing moment, the package is very small, much smaller than any of my other, but then again this is just a 12inch laptop so it should be normal.








Vista Score is 4, as you can see from the screen shot below.


The first thing I did after I turned it on is to install CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Hardware monitor, so that I can check all the hardware, like you can see from the screen shots the Ati 3410 graphics card comes with 512mb of DDR2 ram and 64bit, the idle temperature is around 45c which also can be reviewed from the screenshot.


The CPU is 1,6ghz AMD Neo X2 with 2 64bit cores, the default temperature in idle mode is also around 40/45c which can be seen in the screen shot below. It also came with the latest BIOS – F 0C.



Next thing was to install 3DMark 06 and run one test before I wipe it clean and install my copy of Win 7 RC 64bit and continue with game testing. I run the test on Vista with the driver that came along with the PC already installed, so no updates here, all is stock.
I got 1521 points on 3DMark 06 as you can see from the screen shot and the temperature of the CPU during the test was 62/63c max, GPU temperature reached 67c. I think that is not a bed temperature at all from what I have seen on my Asus G1S, I would say that is pretty Cool! The fan noise was not nearly as loud as the on my G1S and I can definitely say it is more like the noise that is coming out of my G50 fan, which is not loud at all.



Next would be the entire test with games under Win 7 RC, I plan to test: Unreal Tournament 3, Half Life 2, TF2 and maybe Far Cry2, also Quake 4 and off course again 3D Mark 06...

…Installing Windows 7 RC took exactly 25 minutes.
First thing that I tested on the new Win 7 install was 3D Mark 06, surprisingly the result was 1403 over a 100 point less than what I had with Vista. On the other side it looks like the temperature of both CPU and GPU was a few degrees less than the one after testing in Vista. Ati driver used for the test is 8.612 (the latest from HP website).


First game I installed was Unreal Tournament III. The screen resolution I am testing is the laptop native one 1280x800. World and Texture detail set to 2 (first screen shot) and set to 1 (second). Numbers of bots 5, all tests are made on the first Deathmach map Arsenal. As you can see the FPS measured are between 17 and 27, when the World and the Textures are set to 1 and FPS around 25 average, the game is quite playable. Highest temperature during the game is 73c for GPU and 66c for CPU.



Next game that I installed was Pray. The used resolution was again 1280x800 and I used the following additional settings:





The third game I installed was FarCry 2, with the following settings and the results from the game benchmark tool:



The game is definitely playable but at 1024x600 screen resolution and all set to Low plus DirectX 9 option.

Next game is Quake 4 with 1.0.4 patch. The Video settings are set to Medium quality; screen resolution is the native 1280x800 for the laptop, the results were very good, I had FPS’s between 23 and 50, definitely very playable game as well.





Here is the surface temperature after 4h of benchmarking, note that the temperature is in Fahrenheit and also the 105 one on the low left corner is measured straight in front of the fan hot air exit.



The last sets of games are HL2, Portal and TF2, below you can see the settings and the results from the benchmarks:
HL2
Portal
TF2

All 3 games were absolutely playable with very decent FPS, like I was expecting Source games rule on this laptop.

The last thing I am going to update is the battery life, but that will be tomorrow, I already spent 6h of testing today...need some sleep...

P.S. Ok, I am sorry for the delay, just don't have much time to sit down and add the screen shots and finish it, but here it is the long awaited COD4 test:


The settings I used are the above on the screen shot and I kept the original screen resolution to 1280x800.
I had FPS's around and between 22 and 30, but I definitely thing that for a comfortable gaming it should go down a bit to 1024x600 because in the big action scenes with a lot of movement and effects those FPS's will drop.