Intro:
The HP Pavilion dv6810us is a 6-pound, mainstream notebook computer.Compared to other consumer level notebooks on the market, it is very inexpensive at around $775.Has Wi-Fi (wireless connectivity) built-in.
Noteworthy Features:
Has 3 GB RAM, which is considerably more than some similarly priced notebooks.By way of comparison, the typical cost of a product with this ample a RAM is $1,275.Also, this notebook has a 160GB hard drive.This is larger than the average notebook on the market today, but is to be expected for a notebook of this price.
Weaker Features:
Only has a turion 64 X2 mobile technology processor.This is not out of line with the product's price, but is less efficient than the average notebook on the market today.
Suitability:
A mainstream consumer notebook, suited for general mobile computing.Store massive amounts of data on DVD using the DVD recorder included in this notebook.Includes advanced word processing software -- fine for most serious business or academic writers.Let your computer be your digital darkroom; remove red-eye, power lines, and former roommates from your digital images with this notebook?s bundled photo editing software.If you have a wireless network at home, wirelessly browse the Internet from any room in your house with this Wi-Fi enabled laptop.
Value:
In view of its very inexpensive price, this notebook has great features for the money.Generally, this economy-class model lacks curb appeal, but budget-minded consumers will like the low price.
Suggestions:
(1) Given this device's Wi-Fi capability, you may want to get a wireless access point for your home, so that you can browse the Internet more conveniently from any room.(2) To get the most out of this laptop's Bluetooth capability, you could have a Bluetooth-enabled headset, PDA or other device, and be able to link it wirelessly to your computer within a range of 20-or-so feet inside the same room.
8 out of 10 - Excellent Leader in its class!
After surveying more than 10 medium-sized compact laptops, I have come to the conclusion that this is the best available ...
After surveying more than 10 medium-sized compact laptops, I have come to the conclusion that this is the best available at this time (June 2008) in its class. Sony?s were a definite No-No because of their cost factor. Gateway, Acer and ASUS were on the other side of the cost spectrum which worried me! I have used 3 DELL laptops till now (and they have all been pretty good), so I wanted to try something else. Toshiba and HP were left to fight it out!
My minimum requirements were: 1. At least 250 GB HDD. 2. At least 2 GB of RAM. 3. At least 15.4 inch screen. 4. At least 1.6 GHz dual processor, preferably AMD. 5. Infrared/bluetooth connectivity. 6. DVD burner The DV6810US met all the requirements except the HDD one.
At 160 GB, the HDD is SMALL! Especially with Windows Vista hogging so much disk space, you can feel the need for additional space. I still decided to go for this one because I have a spare 500 GB external HDD. I use the external HDD to store my multimedia files. The laptop HDD will be primarily used for loading software and temporary storage. Do keep in mind that the external HDD will take up one of your USB ports!
Although, I was looking for anything that had 2 GB or more RAM, I m glad that I bought 3 GB. I strongly recommend at least 3 GB with Vista. Again, although Vista looks smart and has some cool features, it eats any amount of memory you give it! So more the better.
The 15.4 in widescreen with the cool remote and touch-sensitive multimedia controls is one of the best things a multimedia buff will enjoy on this laptop. Watching movies, viewing pictures and playing music is as easy as 1-2-3. Now although, there are 17 in laptop screens out there (and all that real-estate can be pretty useful to artists who edit photos and movies), the factors to consider are cost, weight and portability. DV9810US gives all the same features of a DV6810US on a 17 in screen, and the cost-difference in Apr 08 was only $150. I would have gone for it in a heartbeat had it not been for the weight and portability aspect. A 17 inch laptop will barely fit on the tray-table of an economy seat in an airplane!!! It also consumes that much more battery! And if you don?t need 17 inch worth of real-estate on your screen 100% of the time, I would rather buy a 20 inch flat-screen for around $200 and sit it on a table at home!
The DV6810US is powered by 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor. Though this is on of the faster processors in the market, Vista seems to slow it down (Only if Microsoft could have gotten out a better OS!)
I often connect my cell-phone to my laptop using infrared. This was a decisive factor when choosing between this one and Toshiba A205, A215 and P305 models. All of these are slightly superior to DV6810US on some other factors but lack infrared connectivity.
The Toshibas also lost because of the LabelFlash technology they used in their DVD burners. My study showed that HP?s LightScribe was a better technology because of the availability of media and performance.
Most other laptops in its class feature a webcam, while this one does not. Again, I already had a good Logitech webcam, so I dint care a lot for the in-built one. Although, it will take-up another of your USB ports, it gives your more portability without having to move the entire laptop.
The weaknesses like only 3 USB ports (against 4 in some other models) and lack of webcam are pretty small, and are heavily outweighed by its strengths. The other OS related problems are inherent to Vista, and I believe would come with all laptops.
The other laptops I considered in my study were? HP DV9810US HP DV9820US HP DV9830US HP DV9720US HP DV9730US HP DV9740US Toshiba Sat A215-S5848 Toshiba Sat A205-S5863 Toshiba Sat A215-S6804 HP dv6748us Toshiba Sat A205-S5859 Toshiba Sat A215-S5849 HP DV9812US Toshiba Sat P305-DS8818 HP DV6810US HP DV6833US HP DV6751US HP DV6830US
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by babsbini (see profile) -
July 18, 2008
8 out of 10 - Excellent got this as a mobile comp/ desk top replacement
while there may some shortcomings, none found yet. For the price and needs am glad to have gotten this comp. ...
while there may some shortcomings, none found yet. For the price and needs am glad to have gotten this comp. While it can get hot, I did get cooler for it so no prob there. there are other comps out there but for the money this HP like all others I've had/have do what I need.
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by dthkls (see profile) -
June 13, 2008
3 out of 10 - Poor RUNS HOT. DVD DRIVE NOISY. BEWARE
Beware! This laptop generates a lot of heat underneath, and on the palm rest. I donā??t like heat too ...
Beware! This laptop generates a lot of heat underneath, and on the palm rest. I donā??t like heat too much and I bought this laptop to use to watch movies and surf the web in my bedroom. Also, the DVD drive is very noisy. Additionally, the AC adapter gets SO HOT that it would burn my children if they were to accidentally touch it. Otherwise, the display was ok and it only took me about 2 hours to downgrade to XP and get everything working. I returned it and suffered a $102 restocking fee, but I bought the Toshiba A215-S5837 and it was ~ $100 cheaper so in the end I broke even and got a much quieter and cooler running laptop.
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by rhopson (see profile) -
June 4, 2008
2 out of 10 - Terrible Wretched 2D !!! Graphics performance with the shipped Vista Home
The aforementioned ZEMAX is an optical design program. The bulk of its output consists of 2D graphs and what are ...
The aforementioned ZEMAX is an optical design program. The bulk of its output consists of 2D graphs and what are called spot diagrams in individual windows. These are very simple graphics, very primitive in terms of required hardware, consisting of plotted points, line segments, arcs and circles on a plain background. The Vista graphics drivers take upwards of 4 seconds to plot a spot diagram consisting of about 40,000 of these simple 2D drawing operations.
Moving one window in front of another becomes quite painful as the active window moves (or tries to move) in front of another. The active window's movement stalls for a number of 4 second redraws of the rear window.
By way of comparison, my old Athlon32 x1 @ 800MHz laptop running XP updates ZEMAX windows in some small fraction of a second. My Athlon64 x2 @ 2GHz desktop updates them in a literal eyeblink. Even the same dv6810 with XP redraws windows in almost the same eyeblink as the desktop.
Unfortunately, even with HP's "help", I haven't been able to find XP drivers for certain critical systems like the Ethernet and WLAN adapters or the sound system and modem (mind you, I don't expect to use the modem much).
It's pretty clear that the Vista drivers for the Nvidia 7150m / MCP67M graphics card were written in an interpreted version of BASIC by a retarded chimpanzee. I cannot recommend this computer for anything much beyond basic web browsing, reading email, or writing letters. As things stand, I've been wrestling with HP for so long that the store won't take it back so I'm probably going to wind up giving it to my mother for the aforementioned tasks, and getting another replacememt laptop. (Not an HP or anything with chimpvidia graphics, if I can avoid it.) Too bad, it's a cute little machine. Can you tell I'm not a happy camper?
6 out of 10 - Good A real review that doesn't just say everthing's great.
The default mouse pad settings are way to over-sensitive; air intake on bottom is blocked when it's on your ...
The default mouse pad settings are way to over-sensitive; air intake on bottom is blocked when it's on your lap; 1394 port doesn't recognize my ext hd (which works fine with my xp pcs); no DOS Nvidia Nforce NIC drivers available that work with Norton Ghost.
8 out of 10 - Excellent Good for everything
I Bought This Laptop And I Have To Admit I Thought I Was Going To Be Able To Play High ...
I Bought This Laptop And I Have To Admit I Thought I Was Going To Be Able To Play High End Games But This Thing Cant Even Run The COF 2 Demo! But every thing Else is Good
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by darkgamerdx0 (see profile) -
April 18, 2008
Ethernet,
Fast Ethernet,
IEEE 802.11b,
IEEE 802.11g,
Bluetooth
Networking standards
IEEE 802.11b,
IEEE 802.11g
Expansion / Connectivity
Expansion Slots Total (Free)
1 ( 1 ) x ExpressCard/54,
2 ( 0 ) x Memory - SO DIMM 200-pin
Interfaces
3 x Hi-Speed USB - 4 pin USB Type A,
1 x Microphone - Input - Mini-phone 3.5 mm,
1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire),
1 x Display / video - S-video output,
1 x Network - Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX - RJ-45,
1 x Display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15),
1 x Headphones - Output - Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm,
1 x Remote control - Infrared,
1 x Docking / port replicator,
1 x Modem - Phone line - RJ-11
Miscellaneous
Included Accessories
Headphones,
Remote control
Features
Security lock slot (cable lock sold separately),
Power-on password
Power
Power device form factor
External
Battery
Technology
6-cell Lithium ion
Installed Qty
1
Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support
1 year warranty
Service & Support Details
Limited warranty - Parts and labor - 1 year
Operating System / Software
OS Provided
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
Software
Microsoft Internet Explorer,
Microsoft Works,
HP QuickPlay Software,
HP Total Care Advisor,
Adobe Acrobat Reader,
Microsoft Office 2007 Student and Teacher Edition (Trial),
Muvee autoProducer,
Norton Internet Security 2008 (60 days subscription),
CyberLink DVD Suite,
AOL,
HP Photosmart Essential
Greenpeace 'Guide to Greener Electronics'
Greenpeace 'Guide to Greener Electronics' manufacturer rating (Mar 2008)
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