Customer Reviews

HP Pavilion DV6426US 15.4-inch Laptop (Intel Core Duo Processor T2450, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB Hard Drive, Vista Premium)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Since there are eight different models here to choose from I'll restrain myself from talking about any specifically and try to help you tell the difference between the specs of each.

Processor: Core 2 Duo processors are better than the slightly older AMD Turion technology. The Core 2 Duo's larger L2 cache does partially explain their advantage, but the difference in front side bus is totally negligable so if you expect 1600mHz speed, sorry, it will only be as fast as the RAM and most machines in this price range have RAM with 667mHz. If the RAM was faster 800mHz RAM than I'm pretty sure they would advertise that fact. However, with dual core processors you only need a lot of power if you're doing multiple tasks at one time, so if that's not a concern go with the cheaper AMD models.

RAM: Highly important with any version of Windows Vista. Even with 1 GB the system may hiccup so 2 GB will make a big difference. Still, there are alternatives for people who can only afford 1 GB such as ready boost (a new feature of Vista) that allows you to use a thumb drive as RAM but this is by no means a substitute for having real RAM that goes much faster than flash memory and most cheap USBs will not work since anything slower than a good high speed flash drive might even slow down your system. Also Microsoft says Ready Boost only really helps systems low on RAM (1GB or less) and that exceeding the ratio of 1:1 in system RAM vs. USB flash memory will have no benefits.

Hard Drive: Get however much you think you need. I always use an external since its so cheap though. Some of the models here though run at 4200rpm speeds rather than the standard 5400. That will mean longer load times for programs because it will take longer for your computer to get the info from the hard drive.

DVD/CD Drive: Pretty standard now days. Light scribe, though, is pretty useless since you need to buy special discs that I can never find on sale.

Graphics: Try not to get a model with Integrated graphics like the Intel 950 or nVidia's better but still integrated 6150. Vista really requires a dedicated graphics card (it doesn't matter that much what card exactly because there is only a huge performance gap between integrated and the more expensive dedicated cards). The only reason you wouldn't like a dedicated nVidia or ATI card (besides the nVidia 6150) is if you plan on being on the road almost all the time because dedicated cards do use more power.

Exterior: There are plenty of ports here so I never have a problem. I also liked the two headphone jacks they have in the front :) and the screen looks great. I found the speakers to be more than adequate to pump out my tunes. The touch pad worked well too and comes with a nice button to turn it on or off so you don't brush it when you type.

Battery life: The 6 cell battery was only mediocre for a laptop this size. HP does offer 12 cell batteries which theoretically will have twice the longevity. The only problem if you buy this battery for around a $100 is that it sticks out a little in the back and weighs twice as much.

Operating System: Vista at this time is not better than XP. In the future it probably will be but right now it runs slower, takes ten times more hard drive space, has only marginally better security and there are no worthwhile new functions (it looks prettier though). The only way you can choose something besides Vista (which you may have to if you work a lot with software that isn't compatible yet) is to go with Dell notebooks. Oh yes, and if you're going with a economic PC also watch out because Vista has high hardware requirements.

Service: HP sucks. End of story. Well, not really, we'd have to deliver that in butchered English straight out of a book on Indian to English IT sayings to really get the jist of it. Then again, everyone in the PC industry is terrible now days so its not like they're worse than the competition sadly. In general, just keep praying it doesn't brake (pun intended).

Final Note: You may also want to check out the HP website and their dv6500 customizable models. Amazon is great but sometimes they keep selling old computer models too long and if you buy an older model the performance you get for the same price suffers. Generally a computer's value drops by about 10% for every six months so try to get new models not old ones.

I got this laptop yesterday and i really liked the whole package. This laptop is designed for entertainment to the core with its sleek remote which seamlessly fits into the express card slot, the quick-play touch buttons with dvd controls, the very cool 1.3MP integrated camera and microphone. I watched a dvd ( Italian Job ) on this laptop and had an amazing time using the remote control, the screen was crystal clear ( i returned a sony laptop earlier since the resolution was real bad and pixelated ). Lightscribe is another cool feature which lets you laser etch cd/dvd labels - though that would require special lightscribe dvds. Laptop is sleek and glossy and has an executive appeal to it - powerpacked with 200GB harddrive and 2 GB memory. The laptop is also very silent. Some of the cons that i noticed are:
1. laptop gets a little warm after 30 mins but it doesn't get hot - just warm.
2. The power chord jack seems to be a bit sensitive, whenever my leg touches the chord, the laptop goes into battery mode and i have to adjust it back.
3. Startup is a bit slow. The touchpad buttons need a little *extra* force or maybe its just me...not sure but overall i really liked the laptop and its a grab for the price.

Have had this notebook for about a week. For the money (got it for $899 during a sale) I think it's a great machine. The screen is great and it handles all sorts of media very well. It's very speedy and does a fine job running all the regular business applications I use (Word, Excel, etc). I don't have any complaints about how it functions as a computer and media player.

Only 2 complaints are:

1. A high-pitched buzzing noise when running on battery power, while the computer is idle. I researched this and it looks like it's an issue with the CPU power saving technology switching back and forth, and was able to fix it by installing a free utility called RMClock, which fixes the noise but reduces battery life a bit by keeping the CPU from going into the lowest level of activity for power saving. Appears that this is an issue with other laptops that use Intel Core 2 Duo chips, not just HP. The alternative is getting a machine with an AMD or older single-core chip, which isn't attractive at all given the speed advantage Intel's mobile 2-core chips have right now.

2. Sensitive power cord - electrical connection breaks if the computer is jostled sometimes. Not a huge issue, but need to make sure the cord is solidly plugged in. HP could do a better job here.

Also to note that battery life seems only average (even before the fix noted above). However, for a media laptop this might be expected since I think a lot of the functions (playing movies, etc.) draw a lot of power.

Overall a very good laptop, and a great buy compared to other alternatives if you can get it in the $900-950 range.

Within a few months, I am sure people will laugh at this price since it will no doubt seem high, but at $750 after $50 rebates (and no sales tax due to the holiday!) and given the specifications (processor speed, amount of RAM, HD size and speed, graphics, wireless types available, etc.) this laptop was the best "value" out there as of 8/1/07. I spent 2.5 weeks researching and testing laptops before I finally said enough is enough. This was the second laptop I saw on my first day of looking and I could have saved myself a lot trouble.

There is a "users group" of people who own this laptop which is a great resource if you want to exchange tips, tricks and get help with problems:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/HPdv6449us/

Build quality overall is decent considering the price point. You still have to treat it carefully but at least the keyboard doesn't flex and bend as you type like on the Acer and Toshibas. The screen is very nice and sharp - as long as you can avoid glare. This glare issue is true for just about every laptop made today due to the trend for glossy screens.

The 6150 graphics are fine for everything except games and heavy graphics apps. This is about the best "shared" graphics out there as of today and includes things like 3.0 shading which many others do not at this point.

I can't imagine using any PC with Vista Home Premium and less than 2 GB of RAM. This laptop is plenty speedy for most tasks. You do need to get rid of all of the cr@pware right off the bat and stop a lot of the junkware from loading up upon each booting. That will speed things up a lot. Defrag the drive lots during your installs.

The little remote control is very cool. It also fits into the express slot for storage while you travel. I think the digital+analog TV card might be a fun thing to buy for this PC. Look on Eb@y for great deals on this (Circuit City doesn't stock these).

Battery life is going to be relatively short on this. It is unfair to judge the battery life until you have fully charged and drained the battery a few time to break it in. I think you will end up getting about 2 hours max. from it as long as you are doing heavy processing, running the optical drive at high speed, unnecessarily using WiFi, etc. You can find deals on upgraded batteries that are cheaper than HP.

One thing to note is that the case just to the left and right of the scroll pad will be warm. This is true for most HP laptops. When you are setting up your laptop and thus using your hard drive and processor a lot to install things, this area and the keyboard get very warm. In the winter, it could be a benefit in a cold room or library because it will keep your hands toasty warm. This could be an issue for me during the hot months of the summer.

Most issues you will have with this PC will be down to Vista. This isn't HP's fault. Vista is just a pig of a program. You will want to throw your PC out the window at certain moments but you would want to do this with just about any laptop running Vista.

Things about me..
1. Primary an IT guy, 8 yrs experience in the I.T. Industry.
2. This is not my first laptop. My first laptop was DELL Inspiron
3. I am very huge electronics freak.

The moment I looked at this laptops configuration, I just fell in love with it. This laptop 2GB/200GB under $1000 is really steal deal.

Pros:
1. Great hardware configuration 2GB RAM/200 GB is more than enough.
2. Integrated Web Cam and MIC works just great.
3. The laptop is DVD ready, just pop-in a DVD and start watching. The DVD writer is also excellent and have couple of my CDs well.

Cons:
1. The left part of the laptop gets heated quickly.
2. Vista is too slow and overrides the excellent hardware this laptop has got. My suggestion would be to run Windows XP Professional SP2 on this laptop.

TARGET MARKET: Student/Casual User
PRICE RANGE: Entry-Level

BUILD - 4/5 - Very sturdy and solid. A bit on the heavy side, but it's a recycled case from the last generation model, so it doesn't surprise me.

PERFORMANCE - 4/5 - You aren't going to get outstanding graphic performance on it, but with a 2.0GHz Dual Core Processor and 1GB of RAM, you should be able to watch a movie without any trouble at full screen and run all your normal applications without lag.

BATTERY - 3.5/5 - Class average. Nothing to be concerned about, but it won't blow you away. Expect in the 2-3 hour range, depending on usage.

VALUE - 5/5 - Excellent value. Because it's using last year's dual-core and integrated graphics card, HP was able to keep the cost down, while still giving you nice upgrades like Vista Premium and a hefty 160GB hard drive. Comparable computers coming out last year were double the cost.

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR - Complaints about noise, heat from the battery, and screen smudging all occur if not taken care of properly. Nothing to be alarmed about, just letting you know aware of their existence.

BOTTOM LINE: If you have been shopping for a well rounded computer at a low price, you have just found it. If you are do not use any graphic designing, gaming, or photo/video editing/rendering, you should have a truly outstanding experience with this laptop.

I bought this notebook a month ago. It has been a real nightmare since. The worst part is with HP's technical support offering no solution other than repeatedly asking to reload the factory software, there is no end in sight.

The problem is with the display. After using it for a few days, the screen started shaking and went blank. Called HP's technical support, no much waiting time, which is very good. The HP technician in India asked me to take the memory cards and the hard drive out, reinstalled them. Nothing improved, then instructed me to wipe out the hard drive and reinstall the factory software. It worked for a few days until the problem resurfaced. Called again, being asked to reinstall the factory software. They even FedEXed a factory recovery DVD to me. Called three times already, no real fix. Each phone call lasted for about two hours, just imagine the frustration.

I initially suspected it could be Vista problem. I avoided loading application software after the first rebuild. Same problem. In fact, I noticed that the screen started shaking after the machine became hot. The HP tech support guys still insist reloading the factory software...

We've owned many different laptops over the years, Dell, Sony, and Gateways. My daughter was heading to college and wanted a very high-end HP Notebook complete with TV tuner. It sounded great and we even bought the extended 2-year on-site warranty from HP to make sure if there was a problem, she would have the service she needed while on campus.

What a Mistake! What HP provides for this many hundreds of dollars borders on criminal. After 2.5 months of issues and calls, the hard disk was finally recognized as a problem (the one we bought had 2-160 GB drives). The computer is only three months old. Eagerly we called the "extended" service numbers only to find out the 3-day turnaround is 9-10 business days and you need to mail it in to them. While we clearly had a document stating the "3-day" turnaround complete with pick and delivery, someone obviously offshore stated that we must be mistaken and our only choice was to mail it in and get it back in 2 weeks or they could send us an unformated disk and we can do it ourselves! If we wanted a new hard disk, we needed to give them a credit card before they would ship a new drive out!

Let's see, my college freshman was going reformat a new drive, for a new computer under warranty, covered by an extended warranty because that's how special HP believes its customers are!

NEVER AGAIN should anyone else be subject to this poor customer service and breach of responsibilities that we suffered at the hands of HP customer service.

By another brand! Stay away from HP!

I bought this computer about a month ago. It had the best specs for its price in the site. The computer is quite fast and can handle W. vista well. It ccame with some worthless software, which can slow it down a bit if u keep them in the start up. Another pro is that it doesn't heat. I've used for one hour straight on my lap and I didn't feel any heat, just a mild warmth, no problem
If you are in doubt I say buy it. I bought a second one for my girlfriend less than a month later.

I bought this laptop 2 days ago and it came OVER LOADED with 3rd party software like Vongo, AOl and more. The laptop performs well under "normal" usage, but under stress, it lags a lot, making it very uncomfortable to work on. The main reason why I rated this laptop with a 3 stars is because the computer gets WAYYYYYYY to hot. It seems that HP didn't create a proper heat dissipation system because on the left hand side (where you rest you left wrist) gets way too hot, it even radiates through the keyboard.
Aside from that, the laptop is very tempting for the price, and the remote is just beautiful, you can even turn you computer on with it.

Bottom line is, I couldn't stand the heat, so I ended up returning this machine... but if you don't care a little heat on you wrist.... then go for it.