HP Pavilion dv6-3065ea review

The HP Pavilion line was always been classy, and the dv6 is a beautifully designed and built laptop. The lid has a smart engraved pattern, and opens up to reveal a red metallic keyboard panel and glossy black screen bezel. A metallic strip around the edge houses a wide selection of expansion ports, and the entire laptop feels well built.

An AMD Phenom II processor explains the lower than expected price. These budget chips aren’t exactly under-powered, but overall score of 65 lags behind similarly priced laptops with Intel Core i3 chips. The dv6 is far more powerful than a netbook, but about half as fast as a budget desktop PC these days. A dedicated AMD graphics card means you can watch HD videos, it’s almost powerful enough to play 3D games at low quality settings.

A 500GB hard disk provides ample room for your files, and the dv6 has a surprisingly good variety of expansion ports. There are four USB ports, one of which is shared with an eSATA port for fast external hard drives, and a memory card reader for quick photo transfers from your digital camera. HP hasn’t scrimped on the networking either: the LAN port supports Gigabit Ethernet – handy for large backups – and there’s 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth.

There’s an HDMI output as well as an analogue VGA video output, so you could connect the dv6 to a larger screen or even an AV amplifier for the full home cinema experience. Sounds from the internal speakers are bland, with very weak bass and tinny high notes. They’re loud enough for watching YouTube videos, but movies will be lacking.