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HP Pavilion DV6 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £425
inc VAT

It looks great, performs well and its price is spot on; this is a superb laptop

HP’s Pavilion laptops are some of the best looking machines around if you’re on a budget, and the DV6 is no exception. Its textured lid, silver-effect trim and glowing touchpad bezel make it look like a much more expensive laptop, even though it only costs £450.

HP Pavilion DV6

Its rounded edges and smooth corners look great, but don’t get in the way of connectivity. The DV6 has a generous complement of four USB ports, audio input and output jacks, a multiformat card reader, a DVD drive and an Ethernet port, all of which should be more than enough for most people.

HP Pavilion DV6

Its desktop performance is governed by an AMD A6 Llano processor, which is paired with 6GB of RAM. The A6-3430MX is one of the least expensive quad-core mobile processors we’ve ever seen, and although it normally runs at 1.7GHz, it bumps up to 2.4GHz using Turbo Core, providing increased performance in single-threaded applications. Our multimedia benchmarks proved a challenge, with the X53Z managing to score 42 overall. Although this isn’t especially fast, it’s more than enough for everyday tasks and even for more demanding multi-threaded applications.

HP Pavilion DV6

HP’s paired the processor, which has its own integrated GPU, with a dedicated graphics card so that it can play games in CrossFire mode. The Radeon 7470M might be based on AMD’s older 6490M chip, but when working in tandem the DV6 has the potential to play modern games at high detail settings. The DV6 managed an impressive 42fps overall in our Dirt 3 test, and we still got a playable frame rate when we increased the resolution.

Perhaps even more impressive than its 2D and 3D performance is its battery life. The DV6 managed an incredible seven hours in our light-use test, which is almost unprecedented for a quad-core laptop. If you stick to light tasks, you should be able to last almost a full working day on a single charge.

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Basic Specifications

Rating*****
ProcessorAMD A6-3430MX
Processor clock speed1.7 GHz
Memory6.00GB
Memory slots2
Memory slots free0
Maximum memory8GB
Size35x378x247mm
Weight3.0kg
SoundRealtek HD Audio
Pointing devicetouchpad

Display

Viewable size15.6 in
Native resolution1,366×768
Graphics ProcessorAMD Radeon 7470M
Graphics/video portsVGA, HDMI
Graphics Memory512MB

Storage

Total storage capacity1,000GB
Optical drive typeDVD+/-RW +/-DL

Ports and Expansion

USB ports4
Bluetoothyes
Wired network ports1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support802.11n
PC Card slotsnone
Supported memory cardsSDHC, MMC
Other portsminijack audio output, minijack microphone input

Miscellaneous

Carrying caseNo
Operating systemWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore optionrestore partition
Software includedMicrosoft Office 2010 Starter Edition
Optional extrasnone

Buying Information

Warrantyone year RTB
Price£425
Detailswww.hp.co.uk
Supplierhttp://www.amazon.co.uk

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