HP Pavilion DV6000 Notebook Review

by on Aug 31, 2007 | 947 comments

notebook.jpgHewlett 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?

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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.

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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.

Update Feb. 8, 2010

Comments for this article have now been closed. This was done because people were using as a means of getting HP support. This article is not an official HP support channel for problems that may occur with the DV6000 product. If you would like to contact HP for support, please visit HP Customer Care at support.hp.com, thank you.

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  • http://www.mahboobaf.co.cc Mahboob.u.atiqi

    i buy HP DV6000 today 1/2/2009 in afghanistan for the price of 900 $ it is good but it dosent have bluetooth it has alittle big screen and big style.i am happy with this laptop
    just i couldnt find web cam

  • Sarah

    I have the HP DV6000. I bought it less than a year ago and it has had to go back to HP 3 times since purchasing it. I had it for about 2 months and the hard drive crashed. HP had it for about 2 weeks, it needed a new hard drive. Once I got it back, I immediately had to send it back to HP because half of the keys on my keyboard were no longer working. This took them another 2 weeks to fix. It worked for about 4 months and then would not boot up. I took it in to Circuit city (where I bought it and the extended warranty). They looked at it and thought it needed a system restore. They tried that and when it failed called to let me know that they hard drive was bad and that it would need to go back to HP. Again, 2 weeks to repair. It worked fine for about a week once I got it back and then some of the keys were sticking. It was only off and on, so I just put up with it. Recently the keys were not working on the majority of the keyboard at all. I tried to re-boot my laptop and now all I get is a black screen. Now of course Circuit city is out of business so I can’t just walk in with my laptop. I have been so disappointed with this laptop. I would never recommend an HP. I will be looking into how to dump this laptop for a new one, and intend to let the warranty company know that a replacement laptop will not include anything by HP.

    • Tigere

      Dear Sarah:
      I hate to tell you this but the only way to “repair” your computer is to rebuild it – these computers are defective – some say the MB others the GPU – it really doesn’t matter, you can’t repair shoddy assembly and defective parts on a forum as much as we wish we could. To date HP has shafted 1000′s of users – extorting 300 to 600 $ in repairs – (this is world wide I might add) and even the repairs are starting to show up in the forums as failing … your only real hope is the several CA lawsuits currently being filed in several states against NVidia, Dell and HP – will result in a total recall/recompense decision… unfortunately not a short term solution I know. By some slim chance if you have an AMD based machine you might find your model as part of an extended service program offered by HP (note the repair failures earlier) … scroll up to my previou posts a link should be there … or perhaps and other reader can guide you there … As for the donkey-d****s at HP well … don’t expect much

  • 8675309

    i also forgot to mention my key board would stick on & off aswell. also the padding under the power key is gone so sometimes it wont turn on @ all allso amd released a patch for dual core AMD computers that fixes video dual core optimizer http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/utilities/DCO_1.1.4.zip

  • Wayne

    I’ve got an HP dv6000 special edition … didn’t know what “special” meant until after I bought it!

    When I try to start the computer, it acts like it is starting up for about 30 seconds, then shuts down and tries again. It will do this endlessly until I just turn it off. Through this process, I never get anything on the screen.

    Anybody know whether this sounds like a motherboard or something else?

    • Kevin

      I think its the cooling ducts make sure that nothing is obstructing the cooling ducts. that includes any dirt. If that doesnot work that its maybe an old motherboard.

    • Nycole

      I am having the EXACT same problem exact! This is the third time it has crashed first time it has crashed like this though. Nothing obstructing the air ducts though perfectly clean take it back, get something else i’ve had mine for 2 years with three crashes never getting hp again. I took care of my computer too so this is not a good computer.

  • Bob T

    Wayne, try starting your computer in “safe mode” Ptogram-Tools-restore computer to earlier date. You might have a corrupt start up registry. If not, save your document and picture files
    and anything else important. Use your restore disk ( must boot up from CD rom and follow the instructuons fot (R)repair
    sequence.

  • Akhil

    I’ve had my DV6000 for a little over a year and so far the only error i’ve come across is of my own doing. I loaded it up with too much junk [typical me]. Otherwise everything works fine. I recently factory restored it after saving all my data to an external and reloaded all of it. Worked a charm, runs as beautifully as ever.

    In conclusion, the tech support for HP is bad but the notebooks themselves [if you treat them right] generally don’t have many problems and whatever problems they do have are usually minor and, a lot of the time, caused by us.

    • pete

      Akhil – lucky man don’t hold your breath though, I doubt there’s a HP dv6000 that lasts more than 2 years in active service.

  • pete

    This thread is a two year tale of woe – HP never never again – tell everyone you meet. Lurk in your local store and tell prospective buyers – DO NOT BUY HP. I now have a 3kg plastic brick that was once a dv6000 – what a pile of tat.

  • 8675309

    well i co-oped @ a repair shop & they had to jump through hoops to do warrenty repairs for acer computers not to mention there support site is useless

  • Angela Krycka

    My cursor pad seems to be able to scroll, there is a little section on the mouse pad that is set up for that purpose, but will the whole mouse pad actually to this anyway… or is there something wrong with the touchpad mouse?

  • Nycole

    I bought the dv6000 in Nov ’06. It crashed July ’07. I sent it in after spending an hour trying to understand some middle east accented man who wanted me to open the bottom of the computer. I didn’t because I didn’t have the tools. I had to tell him that like 3 times before he got it. Anyway I got it back worked until Nov ’07 and crashed again. Right before the year warrenty was up I sent it in again talking to some middle east accented man again and wanted me to open up the computer again lol. Then in Jan ’09 It crashed for the 3rd time and now its going to cost me more than the computer is worth to fix it. Each time it crashed the screen would not turn on at all, it was compltley dead. Anyway I kept up with the maintainance and updates this still happened I don’t think I’ll ever get an HP again. I am looking into a nice dell and putting in the extra money for something nice that will last.

  • Melissa

    After 1 1/2 years of having this computer, the damn wireless card went…I am supposed from Staples that there is a recall on the dv6000 and the dipshitty people at HP deny it and want to do NOTHING about it because my warranty was over 1 1/2 months ago! I am so sick of HP! I am not paying 400 bucks to fix it when I dont know when this would happen again…screw them!

  • Vincent

    I would not recommend purchasing this notebook unless you plan on dealing with many malfunctions that come with it. I bought this notebook about a year ago and took great care of it but have had issues with the webcam, wireless internet and my hardrive fried. Because of all this I decided I had no other choice but to buy another notebook. I believe it’s this particular model that is not safe. I know 2 other people with this model of laptop and both had the exact same problems. Mother boards fried and everything. Good luck out there :)

    • Matej

      Do not buy this notebook…
      1st my headphones jack was not working, then HDD crashed, after replacing HDD, my Motherboard crashed and was raplaced two months after my warranty period expired.
      After that, I lost my wireless card in hardware device manager.
      After that…I think I’ll change my notebook.
      HP never again…

  • tigere

    Once again I want to point out that HP ia routinely screwing 1000′s of buyers … at the following site
    http://forums.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1274587 also see HPlies and Hp stole my money ….
    you will find close to 1000 similar or identical stories as posted here … honestly you can’t possibly read them all but I assure you the theme is the same … failure/no support.
    There are classaction lawsuits either active or in the investigative phase against dell, hp and Nvidia and MS collectively and separately. Hopefully justice will prevail. As for mine- HP 9205 – well no HP product will ever cross my threshold again. My office has several HP products which were rendered useless or partially useless with the advent of Vista ..so I will be stretching XP to the last day and beyond W-7 notwithstanding … but when I have to replace printers, scanners and servers … no windows of any color and no HP of anykind ….
    Tigere

  • 8675309

    about the webcam it was probably win update that missidentified it. during an update

    another thing i found out is hp used gp registry edits on vista home pre. to block manual restore point creation & windows defender to not allow the option to scan after definition update to upsell nav, nis or n360

    also dvd restore was buggy is corrupted my hdd partition 2 times just because i moved the mouse a bit during disc 2

  • chris

    I bought the special edition Hp Pavillion dv6000 over a year a go my first laptop £800 i paid for. it run ok got very hot tho! NOW IT DONT WORK iv bought a new battery that didnt work then a bought a charger and still it will not charge up with the new battery what can i do i dont want to sell it or put it in the bin so any help to sort it out can it be fix ? and how much will it be to fix it iv spent £100 on a new bettery and charger ?

    • http://www.liveadvertiser.com hugedatabase

      Try removing the memory and blowing it out good and then replacing the memory back in… sometimes it has bad connection. This machine has this problem sometimes.

      pc@liveadvertiser.com

  • XG Wang

    I am planning to buy a D-link wireless router. could someone tell which one fits my HP pavilion dv6000? Wireless G or N router?

    thanks

  • Bev

    I got a Pavilion dv6000 April 1st, 2007. About two months later, it went into the shop. It was supposed to be my back up computer…it wound up being the computer constantly in the shop. Geek Squad replaced the hard drive constantly, thinking it might alleviate the problems and it did…for a month or so.

    They ended up replacing the motherboard three times. The video card went a couple weeks ago and they replaced the screen instead of the motherboard. Surprise surprise, the other problems I had been having with the wireless and the computer freezing/lagging horribly didn’t stop.

    A few days ago, Geek Squad finally threw in the towel. It didn’t even last the length of its extended warranty. They didn’t want to repair it anymore and from what I’ve heard about it, it’s not worth it to fix.

    The design is intrinsically flawed, the same as in the dv9000 models. The AMD chip generates heat and the NVIDIA video card generates *more* heat. The fan and cooling system is insufficient to dispel the excess heat- I had a notebook cooling pad to try and help, and it only delayed the inevitable.

    I bought this computer because I had had another HP, the Pavilion dv1000 which didn’t give me that many problems. After dealing with this hunk of junk, I’m giving up on HP.

  • janet

    i bought this laptop at costco and they gave me free windows vista premium software and tossed in an extra battery and laptop stand….now i know why…lol because it “sucks” haha but i love it so far and am not complaining yet!

  • Christine

    I bought mine about a year and a half ago. It was working well for a few months but then it crashed. I had to take it into Futureshop and pay $100. It crashed the next month and the month after. So far I have had to take it into Futureshop three times and pay 100$ each time since I didnt buy a warranty. Also, after a couple months my screen would flash to black if I tilted the screen a certain way the screen would go black. Also, the “gummy” things on the corners of my screen, one came off. Also, it gets super super hot. Sometimes I can’t even touch the battery its so hot. Also, right now im using my computer in safe mode because when i start it in normal mode it instantly freezes and I can’t do anything. Also, the webcam doesn’t work sometimes and lately the icon to use the webcam hasnt even been showing up in quickplay!!
    Also, sometimes the webcam works and sometimes it doesnt when im on MSN. It’s so annoying, because I have to close the screen, and then i have to log on to MSN again for it to work… ridiculous!!
    ALSO, this laptop is so heavy!!!
    I hate taking it around with my because it weighs more than my textbooks!
    Also, I have used virus protection and I just recently deleted any applications and software that might be harmful to my laptop and I still can’t open it in normal mode.
    So… I’m using Safe mode and…. everything is BIG.
    I hate this laptop and would not recommend it to anyone and would never buy it again.

  • http://N/A Zyriik

    How do I stop getting updates from this thing…? :/

  • Matt

    I purchased a dv6000 about… 2 years ago. (ish) and it has worked perfectly! I have put another 1g of ram in, but thats it and im triple booting Vista, windows 7, and Linux Ubuntu and all work great! (including ubuntu!) I will definately get another HP when this one bites the dust (happens to all computers at some point). This laptop has been great to me, and have had no problems. I use it daily for hours on end (school… and I’m an IT major) with triple booting OS’s. Perfect. I only have two complaints… battery life [if Apple can pull off 8 hours (although thats with basic app's on OS X)then so can HP], and graphics card. The Nvidia on this laptop… sucks. I really want an HDMI port (i hear they DO have them on new models??) and a graphics card that is faster with more memory.

  • maxwell

    I have had every problem imaginable go wrong with my hp dv6000 since i got it. Within the first 2 months i had to download a new audio driver for it since the audio would randomly turn off and wouldnt work, which i had to reinstall many times before the computer would finally accept it for more than a few hours. The speakers started frying shortly after. A few months after i bought it the thing started overheating so much it would start melting the glue that kept the rubber legs on which all ended up falling off and it would turn itself off because of it. It would freeze all the time. The disk drive wouldnt eject or it would eject randomly when i was using it. There were constant errors when running itwhich caused the infamous blue screen to keep poping up. It crashed once and eraced nearly all my data and now it just crashed again and would flash its blue lights for 5 seconds when i turn it on or it would turn on when i hit the dvd or quick time button on it and sometime it would run for 10 sec but it would never show anything on the screen. It has been a pain since i got it and i know none of it has been caused by anything that i have done to it. And all the people who say dont trash HP wll i love everything they made except laptops, they look amazing but they have so many flaws because they would just keep producing without really testing them out just like microsoft did with vista.

  • jojo

    i loved my laptop,smooth keyboard and easy to search files but i was confused about the heat i dont know why it becomes hot and also the battery runs out so fast>> but still iam having fun with it thanx >>

    uae girl

  • http://www.pcmech.com/article/hp-pavilion-dv6000-notebook-review/ Red

    I have had my HPdV6000 now for almost 3 years. Generally I love the way it performs. I run XP professional and MS Office.
    However, compared to other laptops I have owned or had the use of from my company the HP DV6000 has been rather un reliable.
    In a matter of months keyboard buttoms would come loose and cannot be replaced since the delicate plastic mounts that hold them in place crack and break – have to send to HP for repair.
    Wireless card failed in just under a year and had to be repaired by HP. Motherboard failed and had to be replaced twice, first in just about 18 months and again just this last month alomost 18 months since the last failure.
    It gets very hot, hard to see in bright light but when it works it is great. If only it was more reliable as these days a laptop should not fail so quickly and shuld be more reliable in terms of it’s hardware. All this has cost a lot in repairs – almost 300 dollars a pop to send it back to HP.
    HP Service: for me has been excellent, never had a problem and they have always turned it round very quickly so no complaints there other than the fact it is expensive.
    As I say, if only it’s hardware was more reliable it would be a terrific laptop.
    Would I buy another HP – Yes I would but I would also hope and expect they have solved the hardware reliability issue and heat issue.
    See ya and enjoy your HP laptops – many of what I have read in these postings are issues of poeple with viruses and computer iliteracy or however you spell the darned word….

    • jmo

      Hi, I am having problems with the resolution on my HP DV 6000. Since I started using the S-video cable to play movies on my tv, the resolution seems stuck on the display that makes all of the text seem large and hard to read (blurry even). Usually it looks this way while connected to the tv, but once I unplugged the s-video (function f4) it would revert back to the typical 1024 by 768 looking font. I have checked all of the settings – it reads 1024 by 768 but it just looks off. I reduced the resolution and it looks better but I just wish I could use the 1024 by 768. Not sure if anyone knows any fixes to this. It is almost like 1024 by 768 is no longer working.

      Thank you.

      Regards.

  • Jim oberschmidt

    Good Morning Dave,
    We here, in historic Milan, Indiana, have 2 HP dv6607 for home and gaming use and really appreciate your review. Both were bought in a bundle and we liquidated the odd printer and camera.

    Our experience was very close to yours and my teenage sons have certainly given them a workout. One son now uses Firefox browser and the other is original.

    I would add, learned that while a gloss finish looks great, for on the go and active anywhere use, I would prefer a matte finish.

    Thanks again and looking forward to a fun year with pcmech premium.

    jim oberschmidt
    http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimhandi

    • 8675309

      i agree i would glady pay more for a matte finish since after awhile it got annoying to clean it

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