Short review of the dv6 Ivy Bridge

I received my dv6 a few hours ago on the order I placed yesterday. Props to HP for shipping it so quickly. It was $1199.99 for a pre-built with the following important specs:
i7-3610qm
8GB 1600mhz RAM
1920x1080p Matte Screen
Nvidia GT 650m 2GB
750gb 7200rpm HDD
Blu-ray player; SuperMulti DVD burner
802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth
Back-lit Keyboard
6 cell battery

I bought this laptop for two purposes. I wanted a nice laptop to use for work, and I wanted something that would play Diablo 3 well in a 15" form factor when I'm not home. I own a Sager NP8150 but it's sort of a pain to lug around for work. This is over a pound lighter, it's thinner, and has more than double the battery life of the NP8150. I bought a per-built HP because I am leaving for Italy next week and couldn't wait for a customized dv6 to be built.

Anyway, on to the review. The first thing I noticed was how aesthetically pleasing it was to my eyes. It's black etched with silver around the edges. Upon picking it up I was surprised about how sturdy it felt. No matter where or how I held it, there was no sign of flex. On the underside there is a quick access panel with one screw. It gives access to the wireless card, RAM slots, and the HDD.

The screen was much better looking than I expected. I'll probably calibrate it sooner or later but for now it looks great. The colors are vivid and it gets very bright on the max setting. Luckily there are no dead pixels on mine. I'll properly test it with Battlefield 3 and a few Blu-ray's over the next couple days.

The speakers sound great out of the box. I only tested it with a few songs and a few minutes of a Blu-ray movie but I'm very happy with the sound. The speakers get very loud and still manage to sound crystal clear at max volume. There is some bass with the addition of the sub woofer but not enough to properly rattle the desk with. As soon as Battlefield 3 is done downloading I'll report back on how it sounds.

The keyboard is very nice. There is no keyboard flex and every key has the same crisp feel as the last. The back-lit keys are... well.. back-lit. It's your basic white LED back-lit keyboard. You turn it on and off with fn + f5 and there is no adjustment to the brightness that I have found. It works very well in a dark room.

The touch-pad is your basic multi-gesture touch-pad. The texture is nice, pretty much the same feel as the palm rest. The left and right buttons were kind of annoying to get used to at first. For instance; pressing on the outer edge will sometimes not register. Either you have to press the button harder, or you will have to press the button closer to the bottom center of the touch-pad. There is an on-board mic to the upper left and there is a finger print reader to the far right of the touch-pad.

Finally lets talk about the components that make this laptop shine. I'll start off with a word of warning. Don't run Prime95 to stress the CPU. Bad idea. On a notebook cooler it topped out at 98*C on all four cores. And since the GPU and CPU use the same fan, do not run both Prime95 and any GPU benchmark at the same time. You will probably go into thermal shutdown like I almost did. I got too used to being able to do that with my Sager gaming notebook. Other than that thermal shutdown scare the temps are fine in normal use. Sitting on my lap idle while plugged in the CPU rocks between 45-55*C and the GPU at 35-40*C. I ran a full test of 3dmark 11 and the CPU topped at 70*C and the GPU at 61*C.

The wireless card is listed as a Broadcom 4313GN 802.11b/g/n. I'll probably replace it with the Intel 6230 I have sitting in a box somewhere. There was no manufacturer listed on the RAM modules, but they were 1600mhz CAS 10. I already replaced them with Hyperx 1866 modules I had sitting around.








I think those are all the thoughts I have on it for now. Like I said I've only had this for a few hours and after I get some good time in I'll update this review. Thanks for reading my wall of text, and I hope this was helpful.
Semper Fi

*UPDATE*
Here's an update with some 3dmark 11 benches.

Kingston Hyperx 1866mhz 8GB
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3382682;jsessionid=q9wr8po6vvob1p4x9f7xt9rz1

Stock 1600mhz Memory
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3396337;jsessionid=mli0te7w4b4ei07739rbh1x9

 

Are there alot of pre installed software? And do you have any pics with the backlight keyboard in full display and pics of the drive and RAM? Nice review, I'm hoping a sweeter deal comes next week.

 

thanks for the great review! i so cant wait for mine to get here. have fun with the beast!

 

Thanks for the review, and especially for putting a rest to the the RAM and wireless card debates. I'm pretty happy the RAM ended up 1600MHz.

 

Amen to that, hopefully these things will be able to accept 1866mhz ram for maximum e-peen'ability.

 

So...about the screen (I know mine's coming tomorrow, but I'm excessively impatient)...does it have the property that some us would describe as "graininess"? I've seen this problem before on matte screens, so I'm a little concerned...

 

Did anyone else notice in picture 4 that when the lid is open it blocks off the second and newly added exhaust port? Lol @ hp design team.

 

According to the hp website the screen is anti-glare, not matte. I am expecting a less than impressive 1080p compared to say an Asus.

 

It took me about 30 minutes to uninstall all of the HP bloatware. So yeah, there is a lot. I took those pics with my cell so let me grab my digital camera and I'll take a picture of the keyboard with the lighting on. I'll also take a pic with the under panel off.

 

1866mhz RAM works so long as it is PNP RAM. I happened to have a 8GB kit of Kingston Hyperx handy to plug in and it runs at 1866mhz.

 

You're right, I was wrong when I listed it as matte.

 

I was actually very concerned about that too. From what I can tell, it doesn't seem to be an exhaust port. I may be mistaken but I think its an inlet.

 

Thanks for the review. I'm still waiting for mine
BTW, I ran Prime 95 on my previous dv6t that I just returned. The temperature never went beyond 80C. It doesn't sound good that this one went up to 98C even on a cooler...

 

I thought matte and anti-glare were the same thing?

 

Matte screens have a different texture. Anti-glare still have some slight glare where matte has almost no glare.

 

thanks for the review! will you be able to report on the battery life on this laptop? i'm trying to decide between a 6-cell or 9-cell battery

 

Matte and anti-glare are supposed to be the same thing. Matte screens use an anti-glare coating, and glossy screens don't. It's possible that HP is doing some weird labeling with the screens though.

As for variation in glare, the aggressiveness of the anti-glare coating varies between panels. Many business monitors (eg Dell Ultrasharp's) are known to use a very aggressive AG-coating which gives off a slight "sparkle" or a grainy appearance, while other monitors use a lighter AG coating that leaves a bit more glare but doesn't suffer from graininess. Some people label particularly light AG coatings as "semi-glossy" as well.

 

HP did that with the envy 14. It hasn't really caused any problems ('course the envy 14 has two fans and the second exhaust port is on the right side)

The most it has done over two years of use has heated up the area near the power button. Kinda annoying but oh well. The area above the exhaust grill on the right also heats up the same way and it isn't blocked.

edit: Though if it is an inlet than that's even better. The envy 14 has that blocked spot as an exhaust port. (though again, two fans and two exits and the two are also linked together so in the end what doesn't come out on that side comes out on the right.

Anyway let us know how the 650m does.

 

I wasn't busting on your review, it's nice to have a few extra looks to satisfy the wait. I was just clarifying for the other guy.

You did an ok review..... for a jar-head ;]

 

Those temps really scare me, but i guess the 3dmark11 benchmarks better represent gaming, right? it just doesn't seem like ivybridge and kepler should have higher temps then before

 

I thought it was interesting because that heat over time could cause the glue (its an hp there IS glue) to lose cohesion, but we shall see.

 

Ivy Bridge gets way hotter when it overclocks.

 

Hasn't happened yet. I mean some of the other Envy 14 with radiance screens have had pixel rot. Or whatever it is when green pixels begin to expand and overtake the screen.

I've been lucky and haven't had that issue. The computer HAS been heating up more than normal at load, but I'm putting that towards to almost two years of use and never replacing the thermal paste/heat pads and not doing much to clean the dust out of the fans.

edit: don't get me wrong the metal gets warm over there but it doesn't get so hot that it burns you. The air is probably around 120 or 130 Fahrenheit when it comes out.

 

It's a quad core ivy with a graphics card. One can only assume the exhaust will be as hot as a alienware or g75.

 

Yeah you're right. Mine is just a dual core i5 with a 5650. Still the i5 can get up to 90 Celsius at times nowadays.

 

Maybe i'm just lucky but I've never seen one of my laptops go above 70 degrees Celsius. That's really not good bro lol.

 

Haven't tested the battery life yet. I'll test it at work tomorrow.

 

I think this laptop could use a nice repasting with some IC Diamond. That should help drop temps.
I can't figure out how to overclock the GT 650m. I've tried MSI Afterburner and Nvidia inspector but none of the settings stick.

 

Thanks for the fast review Eldaren. Nice to hear that the build quality is good.

Can you check where the CPU frequency floats under full load? Notebookcheck reports the maximum 3.1ghz with a thick laptop/test unit. Wonder how the DV6 will handle this. :/

 

HP needs a better cooling design for their laptops lol~

 

Can't believe they actually make the vent look like a beats logo.. aside of that

How is the fan noise? is that fuuuu, or flleeee(high ptich)

 

Well this is 2 years old in Florida and is a rare event.

usually it's around 83 or 84 celsius under heavy load.

 

I'm actually a fan of coolsense, I've never had a hp laptop over heat or get uncomfortably hot, even when it's sitting on a comforter.

 

The beats logo underneath the dv6t is the subwoofer, no? The vent is located on the opposite side, as you can see the fan there.

 

is it just me or does the last photo look like the left click button is crooked?

 

that's not a vent, it's the sub woofer

Congratz on the laptop and nice review!

might be another month or 2 until I can get one since HP only gave GT 630m to the pre-configured specs in Europe and MiddleEast and I'm waiting for one with the GT 650m

 

underclocking a processor to keep it from getting warm isnt a real cooling method

at least not one that i would be proud of

 

It isn't? You wouldn't? Cool, but why quote me?

 

I woud be interested in seeing the Futuremark CPU and 3D benchmarks with the original memory vs the new memory you put in.

 

Looks like HP may have set the DPI for the overall font/screen size to maybe 150%, reset it back to 100% to gain some real estate.

 

....because we were talking about HP coolsense? you quoted me first

thats what coolsense does in case you didn't notice

it underclocks the CPU as necessary to keep the temperature to a certain threshold

so even though its advertised as 2.0-2.9ghz, if you use coolsense (on cool mode that is) its always 2.0, or less if its needs to be, to get the temperature down

 

Are you sure?

I'm pretty sure it's fan speed controlling software that stops your computer from melting down, when over clocked and under ventilated.

Actually I'm 100% sure that it does exactly that.

 

The above is a decent explanation of what coolsense does, neat but not groundbreaking.

 

Thanks for the review. Any idea how far the screen tilts back? From the design of the hinge, it seems that it can't go past 120 degrees or so. Thanks.

 

im talking about using coolsense set to coolest mode

set to coolest mode, it will stop your cpu from turbo boosting altogether (in my case with the 2630qm it keeps it at 2.0ghz)

if mentioning that i think thats a lame way of keeping a laptop cool offended you, i'm sorry lol.. theres no need to be confrontational

 

well u need to know that coolsense is much more than that
see here
HP CoolSense Technology - YouTube

 

Thanks for the review.

Are you going to do any videos including boot times etc?

 

Any Benchscores?

 

I'll update with some benchmarks soon. I would like to overclock the GPU but no software I use will let the settings stick... It always goes back to default.

I just ordered a 256GB SSD, so when it gets here I'll update with boot times.

 

Try EVGA Precision.