Hewlett Packard is one of the most prominent manufacturers of notebook computers today, and any trip to Best Buy will make that abundantly clear. Well, as of this writing, one of the notebook PCs they have on sale right now at Best Buy is the HP Pavilion DV6000. I picked one up a couple months ago for $800. I was in Best Buy a couple weeks ago and it was on sale for $749. So, this is certainly an affordable notebook PC. So, how does it perform in everyday use? Let’s check it out.
First, The Specs
In my eyes, the DV6000 is proof that PCs are affordable as hell today. These specs compare quite favorably to my desktop, all in a sub $800 notebook.
- AMD Turion 64, dual core processor
- 2 GB DDR2 memory
- 15.4″ WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
- 256MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7200
- 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
- LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
- 1.3 Megapixel Webcam with mic built into screen
- Altec Lansing speakers built in
- 3 USB ports, ExpressCard/54 Slot, Video Out, Integrated Consumer IR, 1 RJ-11, 1 RJ-45
- Windows Vista Home Premium
Now, when you look at this unit on HP’s website, you will see there are different spec configurations for this model. The above happens to be what I have in the unit I am typing this review on.
Use in the Real World
Now, I am not and never have been a big benchmark guy. If you are into computer reviews that load you up with benchmark specs, go to another site. What I am interested in is real world use. I bought this notebook to get work done, not win any contests. So, how does it perform in that regard?
One of the things that sold me on this laptop was the screen. The screen is gorgeous. It is wonderfully bright and clear, and provides a respectable 1280×800 resolution in a widescreen format. Yes, there certainly are notebooks with higher resolution. It really comes down to preference. While other units may give you higher resolution, some may find it hard to read on small screens. For me, I thought 1280×800 was a good resolution to use for a 15.4″ screen. My only complaint with the screen is that the glare is really bad when trying to use the unit outside. It gets so bad that it’s more like looking in a mirror than into a computer screen. Inside, however, the screen is beautiful.
The fact that this unit uses AMD rather than Intel means that it generates more heat. Intel processors just seem to run cooler in notebook computers. All benchmarks aside (because I don’t care), the performance of this notebook is quite good. It actually opens many apps much faster than my desktop PC, which is using an Intel Pentium Core Duo. So, I have no complaints about speed, however, yes, it does generate some heat.
The built-in Altec Lansing speakers will certainly not compare to the larger speakers you would plug in externally, but they do generate a nice sound for the size. For multimedia use, the speakers will get the job done.
The DV6000 comes with a thin, little remote control for use in controlling HP’s multimedia player. HP is using a proprietary multimedia player for playing DVDs called QuickPlay. It ties in with the remote control as well as the QuickPlay buttons on top of the notebook. The player is decent, but many times I found myself simply wanting to use Windows Media Player rather than the QuickPlay popping up full screen. Also, the fact that it is tied into the QuickPlay buttons can be a little annoying at times. Several times I have rested my fingers on the top of the notebook and accidently pressed the DVD button and launched Quickplay. No matter what I’m doing, that interrupts the workflow badly.
For digital photography, I find the built-in card reader really convenient. Since my Canon camera uses SD cards, I can just pull the card out and plug it directly into the notebook to pull images onto the computer. This means I don’t have to track down the USB cable that came with the camera. Nice and easy.
But, It Uses Vista
Like almost every PC on the market today, this unit comes with Windows Vista. Now, on my desktop, I can rattle off a bunch of annoyances with Windows Vista. Many of us that follow technology all the time have many complaints about Vista, and I still stand by the fact that Vista was NOT ready for market upon it’s release. But, judging by the DV6000, Vista does seem to run better on completely proprietary machines. I do have occasional annoyances with Vista on the DV6000.. For example, sometimes it will lose it’s screen resolution settings when coming out of sleep mode. This is an issue with Vista and will be fixed. Other than that, though, Vista runs significantly better on this notebook machine than it does on my desktop. No complaints, really.
Like all pre-built computers, it comes with some pre-installed software. It comes with a 60-day trial installation of Office 2007. Since I don’t care to fork out several hundred dollars just for a ribbon interface, I opted to install OpenOffice, which gets me 95% there for free. The DV6000 comes with some other pre-installed crap, much of it I ended up removing from the computer.
Note to HP
I am pretty happy with the DV6000, but I need to mention a few annoyances for the benefit of HP. When I was at Gnomedex recently, HP was there and we had a lengthy discussion about notebook design. HP does indeed listen to feedback, so here is mine on the DV6000.
- The QuickPlay buttons at the top are too easy to hit by accident, as I mentioned above. Some obvious way to control or disable those buttons would be nice.
- We need some kind of anti-glare surface to the screen. It’s practically unusable in sunlight. I realize that the surface it does have plays a role in the crystal clear colors I see indoors, but something has to be done to make this thing more usable in sunlight.
- AMD is good for economics, but it generates a lot more heat.
Conclusions
The HP Pavilion DV6000 is a really nice, solid notebook computer and you really can’t go wrong with this unit. The price tag makes it very affordable. The unit sports a nice, sleek design and good all-around performance. It also offers a solid balance of features which really makes this entertainment notebook usable as a desktop replacement. In fact, I enjoy it so much I find myself spending more time working on the DV6000 now than I do my main desktop computer.
So, despite a few annoyances, you really can’t go wrong with the DV6000 if you are looking for a solid, balanced work notebook without spending too much money.
Update 11/21/2007
While I have not had the wireless problems many have been complaining about in the comments, I have had another problem - the battery (maybe). The battery seems to not accept a charge anymore, and Windows says “plugged in, not charging” when I hover over the battery icon in the taskbar. So, HP is currently sending me a new battery and we’ll see if that fixes it. I guess this is the kind of thing you deal with when you buy cheap notebook computers.
David Risley is the founder of PCMech.com. He is the brains, the thinker, the writer, the nerd.
I will not being issuing a class action suit, mostly becasue I just graduated college and have much more to worry about.
The DV 6000 is a p.o.s product.
I think everyone should get together a file the Class Action Suit. Lawyers love to take on class action suits, especially for an issue such as the HP DV. They will do it for free, mostly because they have the opportunity to get a big cut out of it.
Also, CALL 1 877 917 4380 ext 93 (the highest you can go for HP Customer Service). Call them and yell about this horrible product and mention a class action suit.
The Dv6000 series has had some proiblems since its introduction. Most computer products are made up of different components, software and hardware in particular. The power to run it and then a fan to keep it cool while your using it. A keyboard and a mouse pad to give it commands, a processor,RAM,Cache,and a hard drive that stores your “OS” and finally a screen to see what your doing. Some come equipt with wireless cards and built in cameras. On the motherboard you have intergrated systems placed in ,such as video,sound,modem,ethernet and DVD player. A number of USB receptacles and a serial plug and or S video. the mobile battery should conclude the inventory. So what goes wrong with the laptop that makes everyone so unhappy? The 13,000 dollar car you own has software and hardware also; Alternator $365.00 waterpump $165.00 tires that last maybe 2 years $100.00+ Starter $186.00 the car will also over heat one day and not function as it should. The car wont start one day (battery), and during all of this you will be making a payment.
Bob -
Should a pattern develop in your “car” which is repeated in 1000’s of similar models which suggests manufacturing defects the auto maker will recall the “vehicle” and repair it - by law - there is no such legislation in the computer industry … and in this case Hp has demonstrated attitude so far from the founders ideals as to be unrecognizable to him I sure … no HP product will ever pass my threshold again of any kind and should I encounter an HP rep up close and personal … I will snap a few phone photos of the encounter and post them here -
This is not a apples and oranges situation, the comparison was merely a financial one. We tend to spend on material things for reasons of pleasure or business and with computers I would assume in most cases for both. A computer should last you more than one year with out any trouble. Most electronic equiptment only carry a 90 day warranty or some kind limited warranty for one year. How the manufacture handles the warranty is what is trouble some. Customer service should be a 5 star experience to say the least. The vehicle as I was comparing also carries a linited warranty and just recently we are finding more and more competetive warranties and this is due to the current situation with the economy. My Hp dv 6000 is 3 yrs old and has not yet required that I call anyone for problems. I have been forunate ,i hope that I will have at least one more year with out any problems, thats about how long I keep a car. For those who have indured frustration with the use of not only the HP but all makes, I can only say that keep trying til you land the computer that best satisfies you.
hi all
I bought this laptop in 2007. and had nothing but problems since I bought it.
I am not sure whether this is the case with all laptops!
1.the cd drive pops out every 5 to 15 mins and you have to push it in ever time–this is my daily routine now.
it pops out sometimes when I write a CD/dvd and I have lost hell lots of time and money by trying to write
something on a CD/DVD
2.the construction of big laptops are generally flimsy. My camera stopped working. It somehow has a cable
running through the lid and into the motherboard.
3. The blue tooth works at its own will so it is up to you luck and god’s will weather that will work.Never figured
out why it just does not work.
4.Most of all the display!! It has grains in it white dots or de-colourised dots all over the screen. though I can
read what appears on screen. It just is not clear. Oh ya I tried recovering the laptop to see if it was a driver
issue. Nay it was not.
THE worst part of all this is that any hp laptop service you go to in INDIA the only answer is that its a motherboard issue and it will take 1/5th the cost of the laptop to repair it using which I can easily buy a netbook here. And ther is no physical damage in the mother board –I wonder what the problem is!
In essence I have have made a huge mistake in buying an HP
I also found an interesting trend!! in the 3-4 hours I spent in the service centres I found 10 to 12 people bringing in large laptops of more than 14″ for display and similar problems
Guess HP has made products to milk money through service.
Bob please don’t mistake my frustration with HP as frustration with your post - I understand what you were saying and personally I have had good “amortization” on most of my equipment as one would expect especially given the rapid advance of technologies - until the DV 9205 … the point that I was making that this industry is replete with horror stories of poor customer service on all fronts and incredibly expensive pricing especially at the software level … another rub being the “whoring” by most sites such as PC mech and notably others for not stepping upto the plate in support of consumers not able to build their own … and even those that do.
As to the HP 6000 & 9000’s there are at least 3 Class Action lawsuits active that I am aware of and hopefully they will bring some relief … and on the Hp support site there is one thread with over a 1000 frustrated buyers from all over the world … it’s so damn huge it’s impossible to read … not to mention those here and elsewhere … as for JITHIN it is most probably the mother board … but your chances of relief from HP is nil - whatever they were in the past - the world leader in quality and service - they most certainly are no longer …
I am also sick and tired of HP and its horrible support. I bought an HP Pavilion dv6200 laptop in Feb 2007 for a premium price from HP web site. I bought the laptop primarily for my PhD homeworks and research.
The laptop worked fine for few weeks, but as soon as my usage increased I started seeing random crashes with random messages like “IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL”, of “BAD_SYS_CONFIG”, etc . Once the crashes start the laptop goes into cycles of reboots and starts doing launch-up repair for like forever. The laptop also had a heating issue. After dealing with the HP support in India and doing inane things like re-installing drivers and doing numerous recoveries, I finally managed to send my laptop for factory repair after a month or so of hassle.
Anyway, they replaced the motherboard, speakers, heat sink fan and keyboard and sent the computer back. After that, I didn’t install any extra software and kept the laptop for observation by only engaging in surfing and watching youtube videos. The computer worked ok for a while and the problems re-occured in couple of weeks. All this time I had to work on my university computer as this laptop was barely of any utility and didn’t have the luxury of having time to watch when and how the laptop crashes. I also tried installing Windows XP on the laptop but the crashes persisted.
The crashes are so random in nature that they are hard to reproduce whenever the laptop is sent to HP. They come after 2-4 hours of use and then appear in streaks. Eventually the laptop was sent again after doing 2-3 recoveries. The laptop was returned back from HP saying that the computer boots fine and they couldn’t replicate the problem. I was like I complained about crashes and not about no being able to boot it.
Meanwhile, I was advised to buy another year of service plan to be able to get my problems fixed (worth $100). Now after 10 months of playing this hide and seek game with HP, I was referred to the Quality case manager in North America. He plainly refused to do a replacement and asked me to send this computer again for repairs. He refused to commit on what would HP do if the problems persist after a third repair attempt. I sent the laptop for the third time and they plainly sent it back after doing a recovery along with a sticky note on how to create recovery disks. After a week or so the rebooting (BSOD) problems returned and I gave upon the computer and bought a Dell which has been working perfectly. This is after spending $1200 on a HP pavilion laptop and sending it to factory thrice for repairs.
Its been over a year since the last time I sent it to HP repairs and the laptop has been totally unusable for any serious work. I can only surf web on an ever slow Vista and wait till the computer crashes next time. I am never ever going to buy any HP product again, and would be glad if there are recalls on HP dv 6000 laptops so that my hard investment as a student doesn’t go down the drain.
Im using the HP pavilion dv6000 after my first system recovery from the DVDs it says number of system recovery remain =0. now im trying the do the system recovery from the DVDs again and it says this computer is not support by system recovery and you will not be able to do system recovery from this disc. im just curius doesn’t anyone else have this problem????
Don’t you have a seperate partition on your hard drive for your hp recovery to run it from your computer? I had created the hp recovery disks but never used them yet, done reinstall to factory values several times already; you can only create one set of recovery disks maybe you sit doing something wrong and want to do a recovery but try create recovery disks again without noticing it?
Jame, you sure you not trying to create a new set of recovery disks again? Those you can only make once and gives that remaining ‘0′. You not have seperate partition on your HD for HP Recovery to run it from your laptop? Normally you only need those recovery disks if your system ran complete stuck.
hey, my charger just broke, and i was wondering if anyone here knows whether i should buy a new hp one, or just buy a mueller universal charger instead? and if so, what voltage and stuff should i define in the mueller charger?
I highly agree that HP has for some reason fallen in respect to customer service and has not been able to support its ill and badly produced laptop. In my experience with laptops or PC’s I find that the soft ware tends to become corrupt easily and its direction can not execute correctly. Rebooting sometimes solves the problem by resetting the registry, but not all the time. Restoring to a different past sometimes works all the time and with that said, I believe the problem could be a magnetic problem internally ( ac buffering) heat is another factor with motherboards. The sensitivity of the lap top is determine by the quality that was placed into the manufacturing of the laptop. They say, “you get what you pay for” with computers this should not be the case. A computer is designed for use by professional business and its failure could be detrimental financially. (.exe ) (sys.config)(Kernel) etc. software (digital) binary system, (icons) shortcuts, heat situations,very complicated system for some people/hardware failure/bios failure/wifi failure/ is there a computer out there that does better and why?
Take your charger to a local computer repair shop and have them check it. If they say it is no good then take it back and ask if they have a generic one for a reduced price compared to a OEM, make sure you dont leave yours with them. The specs are labeled on the charger unit ( esp. 90 watts ) the generic might come with plug in adaptors at one end to fit various other laptop mfg’s. Good luck.
I have bought a hp dv 6000 series with amd 64 tl-50 processor. Unfortunately it didnt come with original vista installed i had to install the vista myself but the remote is not working infact the laptop does not respond to any button of remote. I have also installed quickplay and all the quick play buttons are working ok but still now the remote is not working could anyone please tell me how to solve this problem.
Hello,
I won’t begin to list the number of things wrong with my DV6000 model. I was purchased in March of 2007 and was repaired twice in the first year. Motherboard and screen…………they should have just sent me a new one at that point… now the motherboard is gone again and it wont even turn on. BC it is just a month out of warranty they want me to shell out 400 dollars to fix it. They didnt fix it write the first time obviously so im not going to waste the money. I will be buyin a MAC soon…..no more HP for me. HOWEVER I am considering finding or trying to organize a class action lawsuit if possible. I do not think its fair they are aware of the problems, the LIST of problems.
webcams not workign, screens breaking, wirless going out, batteries not charging, all sypmptoms my computer has now… and they hide behind corportate doors with there minimal warranties etc.
if anyone is interested please email me at ajcollegeboi@gmail.com
I am serious in regards to this and hope to get some other intersted dv6000 owners and possibly set up a website for people to sign up and get enough customers to go after HP
lets use this countries lawywers for some good use
AJCOLLEGEBOI@GMAIL.COM
-Alex
Alex there are 2/3 suits already in process … you can try HP LIES as a starting point - or you can google class action lawsuits HP
in the last week i have had to do a hard reset evryday. the last fw hasnt fixed much either
First of all! The majority of the complaints are about a product not made by HP such as the CD-ROM that keeps popping open. Try contacting the cd-rom manufacturer about the problem. Second, I’ve owned my DV-6000 for about a year. I’m a field tech and I leave it turned on and open in my truck not running with the windows up in south Texas, in the dead of summer. I’ve had no problems at all. It runs just as fast and works just as great as the day I bought it. So the next time you want to get mad at HP because your computer for some reason or another (maybee you droped it…) isn’t working the way you want it. HP didn’t actually make any of the parts you are having trouble with. Either way, I’ve abused my laptop in every way you can imagine. I’ve spilt water on it, punched the screen and keyboard, dropped it, thrown it, and don’t forget leaving it in the 150 degree inside of my truck running for hours, and it works perfect in every way still.
Someone stated above: and on the Hp support site there is one thread with over a 1000 frustrated buyers from all over the world … it’s so damn huge it’s impossible to read …
Thats pretty damn good numbers if you think about the fact that HP has billions of computers world-wide!
As for the person with the remote problem for quickplay. I’m sure there is a driver or 2 that needs to be installed for the remote, and possibly some way to sync it to your particular laptop.
Kinda sounds to me like most of you just need to learn to properly maintan a computer! (not directed towards the remote guy)
But don’t get me wrong there are lemons (meaning continuously has problems) out there however if you get HP to replace your CD-ROM or motherboard or whatever 3 times and it breaks again. Well lets just say for example you send it in for a new CD-ROM 3 times in 6 months and your original was made by lets say Lite-On as well as the replacements that broke. I’d clearly ask them for a different brand when I sent it back for the fourth time, and I would call Lite-On too. Afterall they made the CD-ROm not HP!
BZ - you have bracketed the problem perfectly !! Your post is exactly what we should all be posting … in fact it probably represents what we expected when we purchased HP 6000/9000 laptops. Not true unfortunately for way to many of us.
Included but not mentioned in those posts was the fact that Nvidia GPUs were known to be defective and had re-imbursed some OEMs - HP included(big class action suit there). Further, the MBs in these units were also defective and many were replaced not once but 2/3 times and still remain precarious; excessive heat continues to plague many of these models causing premature failure.
The rub is and continues to be that though HP did in fact have a program to “repair” these defective units - the repairs failed - frequently with the same problem. I agree “there are lemons” so the replacement costs to HP - probably minimal if you calculate 1000’s against millions.
Which pretty much says it all - What the **** HP. I want one like Brandon’s !!
Brandon, congratulations on your 1 year (or so) anniversary on your good working HP laptop. If I were you, I probably wouldn’t brag too quickly on how well its operating. I’m just sayin’….. Alot of the users that are posting on these boards have laptops that are 2 and 3 years old and past warranty. I’m assuming that at least 75% of the people having problems with their HP laptops DO in fact know how to take care of their laptop. I worked with HP for 4 years (2005-2009) and during those years, I helped about 30 people buy the DV series laptops. When I say I helped them, basically what I mean is that they all bought their laptops using MY HP discount! Well out of the 30+/- people about 12 of them have come back with serious problems that I cannot resolve and/or am not qualified to solve. I always suggest they call HP and they do, and they get the big run-around. These are not only co-workers, but FAMILY members too!! Do you know how embarrassing that is?
So in conclusion. . . good luck to you and your laptop - try to stay out of the heat and make sure you keep good backups.
BTW - my coworkers were not HP employees, As an HP IT support tech, I was installed at an investment bank in NYC.
I’ve bought my dv6550eb oct.2007. So long I not really have to complain about it. Only my battery goes flat in 5 mins but I guess my own fault by wrong usage. Only other thing is burning of cd-roms not seem to work anymore since 2 months or so. Light scribe and DVD still does it. I mailed customer service about it and they replied by mail explaining good what I could all try to see get it back to work, I only got DVD burning to work again, light scribe always kept working.
For the rest it can turn games I like, can make music on it with musicprogs… never really noticed a heating problem or so and I think in the passed months it been turned off less then 48 hours all together (lazy to unplug the netpower it’s behind the sofa, even I let play movies all night while I sleep in the sofa yes also lazy to go to bed but more because it’s where my cat sleep he not like me there. lol) Even it dropped halfly to the floor once when cable stuck unnoticed behind my foot and I pulled the whole thing with me, I can tell you you feel quite sick if you see that happening but I was lucky to have alot cable and so connected so it kept hanging more and didn’t drop fully trough on the ground; only thing I had reinstall driver for sound.
It’s actually my first notebook I bougt and before that I used something that still was from before PentiumI time, I could only turn Win98 on that and it toke between 30sec-2mins before something finally opened after you clicked. Really I am happy with this HP
I hope I get some spared from the problems I read here. So I cannot really compare the HP notebook to anything neither do I have any idea how long a laptop goes along.
@ Jame are you sure you not just trying to create new HP Recovery disks because those you can only make once! You don’t have a seperate partition on you HD with HP Recovery to run it from your laptop? The disks you only need if your system ran completely stuck.
Btw I also got a few times the message there were problems when starting up and closing down the laptop, that it toke to long time. But via the health check and problem solver and so it usually got a solution, it was something I also just stumbled upon… maybe not everyone knows that but try with Windows help to solve a problem, it might take some time, I ‘m not a computer genius either but eventually I usually get problems solved, sometimes with the together coming stress ofcourse :p
Hi,I’m having a problem with my new hp pavilion tx1000 PC,the problem is that whenever I switch on my laptop the light for the switch on button and some others shows but the monitor does not display(i.e remain blank) and after switching it off and on it gives me the same blank monitor so I had to remove the CD/DVD ROM but sometimes when I leave it on I still that problem can someone please tell me what is happening because I really like it since it’s portable and easy to carry.
Had my HP Pavilion DV6000 since Apr/07 and the only equipment related issue that I have encountered is a dead battery and this is because I left it attached to the laptop all the time even in plugged in mode which causes the battery to discharge (retain battery memory). The 1G RAM Memory (which is small by today’s standards) on the AMD 64 chipset is sufficient to do all of my day to day work related functions. Blips have occurred with the Vista O.S. but most of this is related to the poorly implemented system when it was packaged in late 2006. The new service packs have corrected many of these errors, in fact I have managed to get most of the “old” Windows XP programs running using this platform.
Note: I only came to this website looking for a new battery but decided to give my two bits because I saw many of you complaining about the technical aspects of this laptop as being ‘low budget garbage’ but my feeling is this laptop computer is an AWESOME product and is a bargain for MOST people if you know how use a computer properly. As a technogeek, I can empathize with those that have programming problems but I have not encountered problems with the physical components other than the battery and that is caused by 2+ years of hard work related use.
The HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop is rather a good laptop. i have bought this laptop for 3 months. But the capacity of battery is absolutely not large enough for me both in the work and life. and right now i am looking for a HP Pavilion dv6000 battery replacement since the original HP Pavilion dv6000 battery is too dear for me. BTW i have seached from the google and found the following websites: 8 cells HP Pavilion dv6000 battery http://www.hunt360.net/hp-pavilion-dv6000-battery.htm
It seems to be attractive both at the quality and the price.
Anyone gives me some suggestion?
Thanks sincerely
I thought about getting a new battery from Yanec Power Products. Compatible met: HP Pavilion dv6500 series.
YANEC Laptop Accu (12-Cell Li-ion, 10,8V 9600mAh) It cost 127€ here. Sorry but I don’t find an english link to Yanec.
127€ ?
It is much dearer!
12 cells HP Pavilion dv6000 battery http://www.hunt360.net/hp-pavilion-dv6000-battery.htm
It is compatible with HP Pavilion dv6500 series.
US$ 83.68 12-Cell Li-ion, 10,8V 8800mAh
is it more decent?
It is said to be One year warranty and 30 days money back! Shipping all over the world.
CE, UL, Rohs and other approval
Any comment?
The same shop I found that Yanec, the HP 12-Cell Li-ion, 10,8V 8800mAh comes even more expencive here with 139€, it sais 12 months warranty but yesterday in the computerstore (I got that xb3000 dock) I asked for battery the guy said HP only gives 6 months warranty, maybe here it’s different arrangements, can that? Haven’t actually been searching more online shops for compare prices. Actually that shop is what HP works here with if you need spare parts, you can order via there.