Questions about the HP dv6t quad edition series

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new laptop for around US$1,000 - 1,100. So far I think the HP Pavilion dv6t quad edition series is the best offering in that price range, here are the specs I've configured:

• dark umber
• 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 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• No Additional Office Software
• No additional security software
• 30% OFF! High Capacity 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (standard) - Up to 5.75 hours of battery life +++
• 15.6" diagonal Full HD HP Anti-glare LED Display (1920 x 1080)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R) with Wireless Display Support
• Standard Keyboard with numeric keypad
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
• HP 2-year Care Pack Pick Up and Return Service for HP Pavilion Laptop PC

Total cost: US$1,244 (including free 4gb xbox 360 promotion for students)

I can sell the xbox for US$160 - 190 so the cost my laptop is essentially somewhere between US$1,054 - 1,084, which I think is great value considering the specs. However, I have a few questions:

1) If I was to wait until Black Friday, how much discount could I expect on this kind of system?

2) Would HP and other manufacturers have put better hardware in their laptops by the time Black Friday comes around?

- Basically I want to know if waiting 1-2 months would get me a better system for around the same price.​

2) Can you suggest any better alternatives to this laptop that are priced around US$1,100 or less?

3) How do the sager NP8130 and NP5175 compare with the HP laptop? Pros and cons?

4) Is it possible to request parts for the laptop that aren't listed on the HP website? (e.g. SSD, less ram (to reduce the cost since I'm never ever going to utilize the full 8gb), better graphics card, better network card)

5) Strangely, if I go to this page when I'm not signed in to my student account on HP and select the "Recommended configuration" ($1214.98), the "HP 2-year Care Pack Pick Up and Return Service for HP Pavilion Laptop PC" is included in the price.

If I login to my HP student account and select the "Recommended configuration", the "HP 2-year Care Pack Pick Up and Return Service for HP Pavilion Laptop PC" is not included in the price and I have to pay for it.

Why is HP not offering students the Care Pack when they select the "Recommended Configuration"?

Thanks!

 

First off, Hp seems to have huge discount coupons on this model available every couple of weeks. I was under the impression there is a current one available now for something like 375 or more off now. Pricing on HP's is getting to be almost like cell phone billing, harder than heck to compare different ways of buying.
Second, as for waiting, the ivy cpu's are coming out soon, and according to my local Best Buy , they've been burning out inventory to make room for the 'fall models' whatever those are going to be. And, with Bulldozer expected to FINALLY make an appearance in your 1 to 2 month time frame, I would expect a dramatic price shift across the board even tho its a desktop chip. In any event, you might consider sitting on this a few weeks to see what shakes out if whatever you're using now is enough to last you a bit longer. Everything I've read lately indicates a slowdown in the PC market so prices should start falling, and with HP getting ready to spin off their pc division, they'll probably want to push everything out the door to try to increase market share and make themselves more attractive to potential suitors.

You might also keep an eye on the llano laptops, the Dv6z and the Asus K53T which are pretty remarkable boxes at their price points, and considerably beyond

One other thing, if you search posts by a "HTWingNut" he had Sager, the Dv6z, and the K53T. He has a bunch of posts regarding all three. He ended up returning 2 and keeping the Dv6z. There are whitelist free bios out now so you can put in most any of the good wifi cards you might want, and depending on what kind of gaming, if any you do, the LLano's are worth a look. They are 'unlocked' and can not only be overclocked, but undervolted as well giving great performance and more battery life. Their 6750 is the same silicon as the 6770 and the timings are easily changed with MSI's Afterburner. Bottom line is, a good Dv6z can throw a 3dmark11 bench of P2250 or so which pretty much blows away anything else under 1k. I looked at all your suggested and much more, clear into the 1700.00 range and bought the Z for around 700.00. Couldn't be happier. If, however, you want to do a lot of professional rendering, the sandy bridge versions are faster for that, but not by as much as you might think. In the gaming /graphics arena, the dual graphics/crossfire mode of the LLano boxes in dx10 or dx11 apps pretty much blows away anything out there unless you spend more than twice the money. They're also a lot more fun to fiddle with i.e. set up your voltage and timings to max what you want to do. With the 9 cell batt getting 10 hours of batt life on the Z is pretty much a trivial exercise


Seer

 

Hi Seer,

Thanks for your reply.

Ivy Bridge seems to be a while away, most websites are reporting that it's coming out in march/april 2012. I don't think I can wait that long.

Would you say that the llano A8-3510MX is better than the i7-2630QM? This video suggests that it is, however, I'm skeptical. What do you think? Is the crappy GPU causing a bottleneck for the i7 system in that video?

Would you recommend I take the "HP 2-year Care Pack Pick Up and Return Service for HP Pavilion Laptop PC" or save money on that and just stick with the standard 1-year warranty?

Any idea about question 5 on my first post?

 

Newbie, get the i7 laptop you posted above. I have the same one, the 1080p screen is stunning and the i7 destroys the llano in processing every task. The video you showed was with the i7 using its intel integrated 3000 video. Yes the llano will win in video games against the i7 and use the same power, so both have good battery life. BUT, the laptop you posted also has an ATI RADEON 4770M chip that can be switched on and off, it will also DESTROY the llano in video games, though it will use more power. There is really no reason to get the llano unless you want to save a few bucks for a slower notebook that will last a little longer on battery.

 

Would you recommend that I go for the "HP 2-year Care Pack Pick Up and Return Service for HP Pavilion Laptop PC" or save money and stick with the standard warranty?

I'm quite a careful user and mostly I will be using this laptop on a desk so I'm inclined towards not buying the Care Pack.

Also, I'm thinking of replacing the HDD with an SSD. Would you recommend I do it myself or buy the 160GB SSD from HP?

 

save the money on the care pack if you are not going to abuse it.
Get their SSD unless you are comfortable cloning a hard drive with software
like Acronis, it could be easy or could be a nightmare depending on if your software aligns the SSD for you.

 

do you know what model the ssd provided by HP is?

would I get better value for money by ordering through HP or buying a ssd myself?

btw I'm fine with cloning my hard disk, I will probably do a clean install anyway.

 

if you want to wait, check out the samsung series 7. it definitely looks like a viable alternative to the dv6t.

New Samsung Series 7 Laptops Arriving Soon

 

The Samsung is smaller, but has an inferior radeon 6750 vs. 6770,
and inferior screen at 1600x900, not full HD like the dv6t. Get the
dv6t. I don't know what ssd is in it, but I would probably just install your own if you know what you are doing, and buy a good one.

 

the 6750m is about 10-20% slower than the 6770m, however the screen quality is most likely better, not worse, than the fullHD screen on the dv6t. resolution is an issue of personal preference - i like the 1600x900 better on a 16" or smaller screen for example.

one thing that i noticed is that samsung has plastic palm rests for some odd reason. might be a deal break for some (e.g. me)

 

I have a question as well, about the quality compared to pavilions of the somewhat recent past. My last laptop was at HP pavilion dv6810us:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/shopping/pdf/kn828ua.pdf

While not the most amazing piece of machinery in the world, it did work fairly well for a time. This was purchased summer of 2008 for a post rebate cost of $525US so I thought it was a good deal at the time.

The issues I had with it were:
1. Heat - palm rest was extremely hot when encoding video or playing my good friends Lord of the Rings Online or Neverwinter Nights.
2. Clicking Harddrive - I heard that when the HDD started to click like a clock, it's reading arms were dying.
3. Screen failure - this happened to me several times, and each time I had to take the screen out, reset the connections on the screen and inverter to get signal. It worked fine out over VGA.
4. Terrible power brick - Sweet Mary! I went through three of those and two batteries before it was stolen from me. I know batteries die over time, but the power adapters kept failing. First I thought it was the computer's port, turns out it was the HPs plug to the computer that died (completely disarticulated). Then the aftermarket one, the connection from the adapter to the computer plug had to be taped in a crazy way to get juice to the computer. Finally, the HP replacement I bought while on vacation started to fail before it got stolen (haha thief! sucker!!!).

So with these newer HPs, all sleek, shiney and purdy, have most of these problems be addressed? I'm not worried about HP leaving the market because someone will still address the warranty, and someone is bound to pick up the hardware side of HP. I love the specs on the new dv6's, but I'm worried about ghosts of HPs from my past showing up again to drive me batty.