*HP dv6t & dv7t Select Edition / Quad Edition (6XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Hey guys, Im about to buy this laptop in a few moments. Should I get both the 9 cell and 6 cell?

I will be getting my MBA starting this fall and I may need some battery power. It says the 6 cell can produce about 5.25 hours, but I really don't believe it would last that long.

What are your experiences with this. Also, should I just go with the 6 gb ram and then by my own, far superior g skill 8 gb of ram. If Im buying 8 gb from HP I may be buying mystery meat ram, no idea what the manufacturer might be. What do you guys think?

 

Wow! Mine is due 6/6 maybe ill get lucky! . If you want to edit sig click user cp directly above post reply (at top of thread not bottom) then click signature in the control panel on the left

 

Just ordered mine, you guys have posted a lot of informative threads. I am very happy that I chose this instead of the xps 17, the price of the HP just cannon be beat.

My ship date is june 6.

I got it with:
2630qm
6770 ati
6 gigs ram, (will be buying 8 gb g skill ram later down the road)
I also got the 6 cell and 9 cell battery, just in case I need that battery life, in hindsight it seems like a may not need it, I dont know).

 

Go with 6GB. I don't think you will miss the 2GB.

As for the battery, I got the deal for both batteries. I have only used the 9 cell so far. Windows says I have 8+ hours. I will use it tomorrow at work without plugging in all day and see what I get.

 

So, when the igpu is selected is the fan on all the time but just very quiet, or is it mostly off?

I bet that thing will whine like crazy with that 6770. It's okay though because being able to switch it on or off is one of the best things about this. It seems so much better then Nvidia's optimus. I've been dying to play some of the great PC games over the years.

First on the list is CS source, then warcraft, starcraft, warhammer, and CIV 5. I cannot wait.

 

The way I decided on just my 6 cell was figuring out where I would be using my laptop mainly. I'll be at a university for the majority of my time the next two years so I opted for the 6-cell. I count on there being enough plugs that I won't have to use the battery. I also play games, so in order to do that I would need a good table, in most buildings these are also near electricity. Also, if I were to have two batteries I think it would reduce portability and I would have another thing to forget about (pre-charging both batteries).

I did have a hard time choosing between the 9 cell and the 6 cell though. Reason being, I like having a slanted keyboard which the 9 cell would give me because it is oversized. In the end I decided I didn't want extra weight and if I still want a slanted keyboard I can prop it up with something. But if this doesn't help you decide, the $20 extra for the batteries will also provide peace of mind.

As far as RAM goes, I thought I read somewhere that the motherboard is limited to whatever speed HP's included memory is at. You'd have to check because I don't want to misinform you. If that is the case, I'd stick with 6GB 2dimm. Although I don't know how they make it 2 dimm...2x3GB?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/hp-pavilion-notebooks/431930-hp-dv7t-quad-edition-3xxx-series-owners-lounge-168.html#post7018868 That post seems to indicate it will not adopt the higher frequencies.

Weird, I don't have anything that says signature. (screencap provided) My Control Panel I'm using Opera 11. Is that a donor only function?

And I'm sure you will get it earlier than that date too, I think we passed their delay period that was going on a couple of weeks ago.

 

Yep, I went with the 6gb and the two batteries. It was only 60 dollars more to get both of them. I think they could really come in handy.

 

Hey Arturius! I was going to reply to your post but unfortunately for you I was busy eating BBQ with the family and my phone and BBQ sauce while both nice do not mix . 6 GB should be fine but if you do decide to upgrade remember to of course upgrade with same brand/model. I would say HP's batteries in my experience are 1 1/2 hours short of the HP estimate usually (at least for me) on all power saving if you barely touch the thing i'm sure they're close to correct butttt I got the 9Cell just the same. As you can see above we have the same estimated shipping date... lol wonder who.. will.. win.... I Accept This Challenge!


Biolib- Weird.. No it's not maybe it requires a certain amount of posts?

 

Wow, and I thought I had it tough not being able to play anything after CS:Source! (albeit at low graphics) My last racing game I could play was Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (1998). Oh how I'm looking forward to anti-aliasing...

I think we both made the right decision to buy a laptop in this point in time - they seem relatively future-proof.

Cammeron Johnson: I think you're right, forums tend to impose certain limits on new users. That's ok, just more incentive to peruse this great site.

 

Yeah, I never really thought about the slant, I might actually like that.

The sig should be right above "edit email and password". I see in your screen cap that it is not there .

It must be an opera issue, I used opera for about a month but couldn't continue because it failed to render a lot of pages correctly.

 

Biolib

Also, you're correct about the ram, I've seen elsewhere on the thread that you can install 1600 ram, but it will only work at the 1333 frequency.

 

Arturius - Like your idea of posting ship date in sig hope you don't mind if I steel that =p

Biolib - Yeah but I know there is a limit on private messages (10 posts) so hopefully its either the same or just about as low.. Either way you will know soon as I edited my sig soon after I started on here.

Edit: Arturius only has 7 posts so the limit is either 7 or its an Opera issue or something similar like Arturius suggested (so something not planned). Good luck with that man.

 

Ha, we shall see. Although, I'm kind of hoping that it gets delayed so that I can milk them for more freebees

 

Does it make me a bad person for thinking that exact same thing? lol "please delay my shipment for _____ upgrade or discount." In fact they should give you that option "let us deal with other stuff and deliver your's late and get _____ percent back."

 

I stole it from someone else .

Also, I think that ability popped up after post 3.

 

how do you search within this thread using google?

 

To my knowledge type in the threads name and then words pertaining to what you're looking for? I'd recommend using the search thread button though or if it's a rather important question you're sure has been asked check the first post OP for a sticky.


Edit: Note my VERY IMPRESSIVE skills with MS Paint! lol

 

sorry to bother again guys just doing a clean install on my dv6 quad when asked where to install i have these options

disk 0 partion 1: SYSTEM
disk 0 partion 2
disk 0 partion 3:RECOVERY
disk 0 partion 4:HP_TOOLS

do i install it in the partion 2 which has the 579.1 GB
also do i format that disk before installing?

thank you in advance for any answer!
btw i dont have any SSD drive or anything just the regular HDD drive it came with.

 

They sure seem to be building faster. I ordered a dv6t Quad Ed on 4/28 with expected ship date of 5/26. Shipped on 5/9 and attempted delivery on 5/12, of course I left on vacation the day before the shipping notice. Figures. I should be able to have it on Monday the 16th.

dv6t Quad Ed
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
• 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
• FREE Upgrade to 6GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• FREE Upgrade to 750GB 5400RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• No Additional Office Software
• FREE Upgrade to Norton Internet Security(TM) 2011 - 15 Month Subscription (activation required)
• 30% OFF! 9-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (over-sized) - Up to 9.75 hours of battery life +++
• 15.6" diagonal High Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366x768)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader

 

Mu5sic92 - If you're doing a clean install and don't want the HP recovery partition and you've copied the HP programs over than you can just format the whole drive and have one single partition. If you want the OS on a separate partition you can just wipe the system partition I believe and write the OS on top of that assuming there is enough space. Really it's up to you but I would just wipe it all. that HP partition is usually 10GB of wasted space if you aren't going to use it.

Gibson guy - Thanks for the info


Edit: Decided to get $200 dollar 4yr Accidental Damage Protection.. I try to be careful with laptops but well just imagine Donkey Kong on one =p
Reps gave me a big hassle about it declaring I had to pay the full $400 or Cancel the laptop and reorder. finally got one to tell me I could order it for $400 and have $200 credited back. She was more of a supervisor... Or possibly the person in the desk next to them.. I asked for a supervisor (politely) but who knows who I was handed to =p.
So yeah $50 a year for 4 years isn't bad. Glad I had it with my DV5. Could have dropped it out of a plane and they would have helped me get it fixed

Edit 2: "Estimated build date: 18." That's what it says on my HP order. Idk if it means 18th in line or May 18th or if 18 is code for another number or day that only HP knows but I will be watching on the 18th =p

 

No GPU meter gadgets seem to find neither the Intel HD or the AMD Radeon on my lappy. Any one else who got this problem or know a fix?

 

GPU Overclocking guide It uses MSI Afterburner, a tool that also displays GPU information such as core/memory/aux voltages, memory clock and probably more.

It's not a gadget, but why would you want this information tracked and displayed all the time? As an extension to the Observer Effect - the gadget would slow your computer down.

 

You have made a couple of negative posts now ... but still fail to mention what you are comparing it to...

 

I have the samsung SEC4251. It's good enough for me. I don't do graphic work, just software dev, occasional game. I did tweek the gamma and contrast a bit and that helped quite a bit. Looking at the screen specs using pcwizard, the manufacture date was fricking 2008! I guess that means the notebook I'll buy in 3-4 years just had it's screen made this month. I think my old Asus V1S was that way too, ie the screen was a couple years old in a new laptop.

 

That is true and commanded a $100 premium back 2008. Technology gets cheaper and better as time goes forward (... longevity doesn't necessarily work in to the equation)... there just isn't a straight line relationship between the two. Samsung has been in the display game for quite some time. They really kinda know what they are doing...

bored?

 

I'm coming from a 1440x900 resolution and I really notice the screen door effect as was stated above. It's one of the most disappointing aspects of the laptop for me. =(

 

What was your screen size that had the 1440x900 res? I hope it was small =p i'll be receiving mine in the next few weeks and i'll be dropping from a 15.4 1680X1050 (awesome screen) to the 1600x900 (which already kind of sucks wish they offered a higher res than 1600x900 and infinity in my opinon all 17"+ screens should have a 1080P Resolution option or at least something close. ) I'll post my experience with the screen as well when I receive mine. Thanks for the input.

 

I lowered gamma at Windows integrated calibration wizard.

And looks great!

 

Ok. So I got to work today at 9AM and had 100% charge on my 9 cell. It is now 3:12 PM and it is reporting 10% remaining and approximiately 30 minutes left.

So for the 9 cell doing just typical work stuff it runs for at least 6 hours. It went to sleep from 11:30 to 12:30 while I was out for lunch.

Today I have been doing any and all of the following.

1. Editing Word Documents
2. Editing Excel Documents
3. Browsing the Web
4. Using Outlook
5. The laptop auto switched to the Intel graphics when I turned it on this AM.
6. Wireless was on all day long


UPDATE: at 3:20pm the machine automatically went to hibernate. So 6 hours and 20 minutes on a single charge.

 

gyoung345, which data drive were you using during the day: SSD or HDD? This could make a difference.

Great post, battery information is useful for a lot of people.

 

I have the OS on the SSD with the TEMP files being pointed to the HDD. I also am saving most of my work to the HDD. Only a handful of applications are on the SSD (MS Office not being one of them).

 

My USB ports on the right might possibly be loose. When I plug the printer cable into either of them, I get sporadic and annoying sounds of connect and disconnect (as when you plug in and unplug USB devices). I just changed to use the ports on the left side and am not getting this problem.

Anyone else have this issue? Any suggestions, or is it just a decision to live with it or return it?

 

I have not had this problem, but have found the ports to be different from my other / previous computers. Inserting a USB cable seems to be a two-step process and I have to push harder than I am used to to get the connection to click into place. I thought something was wrong at first as well, but they are working fine.

 

By the way. I keep tweaking the color calibration and the clear text settings and I am finding the monitor to be quite good. I am still adjusting to the difference in resolution from my old Fujitsu with a 1600 X 900 resolution, but so far it is not too bad.

 

Do any of you guys know how i can get the Play/F.Forward buttons to work with itunes?? Thats my one and only complaint about this laptop. Im lovin it.

 

Regarding WiDi, here's the definitive from Intel:

Hello Peter,

Thank you for your email. The i7-2630QM does support Intel® Wireless Display, and the web site has been updated with the corrected specifications. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. As long as an Intel wireless adapter (see list at link below) is in the system, Intel® My WiFi Technology will also be supported.

Intel® My WiFi hardware requirements: Wireless Networking — Hardware component requirements for Intel® My WiFi Technology (Intel® MWT)

Best regards,

Lori Yung
ARK Support
ark.intel.com

 

Any chance someone could post the part numbers for the 6 cell standard and or preferred 6 cell high capacity? I tried looking it up but the model number on the part searcher stops at dv7t-3300 and I do not know if the battery was changed. I would use my S/N or P/N but I have not received my laptop yet and the number listed as Product Number in my receipt isn't working either.

Edit: Just noticed there are two different colours of dv7t. one Umber and one Silver... http://tinyurl.com/3pdn8p5. I believe they only ship in Umber now but on the Customization page for the laptop is shows one in Umber as the main image and one in silver for the personalization. The Umber is the current one right??.

My biggest concern is that it performs well and from what I've read it does. I could live with either colour but it's always nice to know what i'm expecting..? I assumed Umber/blackish as thats the image on the HP site that you first see.

 

Hey Guys...

Ok.. so I got my laptop a few days ago.. It looks great but:

• It is a fingerprint magnet
• I've been hearing that the screen isn't too good (Look ok to me.. but I've never had a good one )
• I'm wondering if I'd like that wonderful backlit keyboard that this doesn't have
• It seems like it's not too sturdy... wonder how well it will hold up
• I won't play games on this - just Photoshop stuff - so amazing video card is no big deal

What should I do? Is it a big deal to do a return? Have you done it?

Would you go for a dell XPS? What would you change to if you were as unstable and unable to make a decision as I am?

 

I am seriously close to placing an order for the dv7t. I have one quick question...

I have been leaning towards a desktop, but that is only because I use my computer as a media server, and stream audio/video/images from my computer to my PS3 to my TV. I have never owned a laptop.

Is it safe to keep a laptop on, not in sleep or hibernate mode, so that I can stream that material?

 

I am receiving my dv6 quad the 18th. What drivers should i install first and how to i make my own recovery disks?

 

If you press start and in the search bar search "recovery" the recovery program should show up, open it and it will give you options to put it into a flash drive, regular dvd (4) or dual layer dvd's (2)

 

Hey Tahoe, when you get the screen to a point that you find highly suitable for yourself, would you mind posting your settings or how you went about getting it to what you're comfortable with? I've been playing with it a bit but I'm having trouble getting it to where I think I want it to be.

 

I just returned my dv7t Quad with Windows 7 Professional Pre-installed.

Today I received my hp Recovery Disk set that I had ordered from HP after I purchased the dv7 but BEFORE I decided to return the lappy!

It consists of a 2 disk System Recovery Media set and an Application/Driver Recovery Dvd.

All three dvds are in the Original Sealed Envelopes.

If anyone is interested in purchasing for $12 (paypal) including s/h,

contact me..

Thanks
Bob

 

My screen size on that 1440x900 was a 17" (HP Pav dv9700z) and I never felt as pixelated as I do on this screen

 

Hi there,


I returned mine after a few days of trying it out. For me the screen was just too bad for the kind of work I do (photography). It had the screen-door effect and the colors and contrast were just bad. As I said earlier, it is too bad as the notebook is stellar in every other respect.

I then researched a lot and went for the Dell XPS 15. I just received it (super fast build). The XPS is AMAZING. The screen is a 1080p screen with a 95% color gamut, which is unheard of in consumer notebooks. Note that only the 15" model has this 1080p screen [15.6 FHD B+RGLED TL (1920x1080)] with the wide color gamut. The 17" models have the 1080p screen but with the 76% color gamut. Then there is the sound. The 20W speakers (with subwoofers) are just mind-blowing. I have never heard such sound on another notebook. This really is spectacular. Finally I was able to add a TV tuner (really nice bonus), WiMax card as well as a mini display port to the notebook. I'm really happy with this system. The system is not that sleek looking like the HP DV 7t, but for me it's more of function over form. The screen and sound alone to me are so worth it.

I will say though, that if the screen does not bother you, then the DV7t is a pretty good deal. HP gives you a LOT for that money.


Cheers,

My Website

 

I remember your posts from last week...

So you got your XPS... Is it so big and clunky as others had said it is or not too bad? I can tell it's not as flashy as the HP but it looks like it could have that simple clean look which I might like.

What about the build quality? Does it feel more solid than the HP?

Did you get the backlit keyboard?

Any restock/shipping fees in returning the HP?

haha.. questions questions questions...

 

The XPS is also much more expensive (~20% more) and the HD screen is another $150 on top of that. However, if you're doing photography, I'm sure it's worth the extra money!

For those of us on a budget, I just purchased the dv6t quad edition today with 33% off. They currently have a 30% discount (nb6171) and then fatwallet gave me another 3.6%. I chose the optional 9 and 6 cell batteries ($60 extra) and the 6770M ($25 more) and paid a total of $830 before tax. Not the best deal they've had, but minus my extras the laptop comes in at ~$760 which is pretty darn awesome. The XPS 15 with equiv discounts is nearly $1k.

 

It is not that big and chunky. It's 1.5" at it's thickest. The HP DV7t QE is 1.3" I think. HP's design is clever as you don't see the entire thickness at the periphery. They have recessed the bottom part a few cms. so that the notebook looks slimmer than it really is. Personally I like the look. It is simple, like you said - I like the color combo. The build quality is good, I think better than the DV7t. But that is very subjective, isn't it? I did get the backlit keyboard and it is great. Also got the BD writer (as I said, this screen is just fantastic - you have to see it to believe it).

HP's customer service was EXCELLENT. 5 minutes on the phone with them and they sent me a return label. I just packaged the DV7t in the box it came in, affixed the label and dropped it off. This AM I got an email saying they had refunded my money already (even though the notebook is still in transit). No complaints with their customer service. No restocking fee. You can give it back upto 21 days after receiving it.

Hope this helps.


Cheers,
My Website

 

I agree with you. If you are happy with the DV6/7 screen, then the HP is a great deal. No question about it. And like you said, for people like me, the XPS is a blessing for the screen with that color gamut - most people won't need it.

Either way, these are good notebooks and you will be happy with the HP too.


Cheers,
My Website

 

One last question... fingerprints... does the XPS get all oily easily like the HP does?

And thanks for all your feedback.... thank you and the other guys that have shared as well