HP Laptops

Seamu$

Hi all,

My formerly trusty Dell Inspiron 630m of 5 years has sadly died from a fatal blue screen hard drive catastrophe, so I'm in the market for a new machine...or maybe 2. My wife & kids use the laptop quite a bit now so was thinking of getting a 15" or 16" laptop mainly for home use, storing pictures, videos, music & films, dowloading files, video editing, dvd burning, browsing, games, skype etc. and then, maybe (if I'm good) a light, mobile 12" or 13" laptop for myself & for travel etc.

When looking at the options I think the nicest looking laptops with decent specs have, in both cases, been HP's, paticularly the HDX 16 and the DM3 or DV3. I have a HP for work & am very happy with it. However, I can't find much interesting feedback on these laptops (search option on boards needs at least 4 character so I can only find 1 thread on the HDX here), find it difficult to know where is best to buy them and the fact they can't be customised like Dell is a bit of a pain.

So, anyone had any experience of either machine? The guys in PC World & Harvey Norman didnt know much about them, HM only had the HDX18. Where is the cheapest place to get them? The HDX seems to be much more expensive (it's >€1,400) than the DV6 for only a bit more spec. The machines are much much cheaper in the US e.g. here and here , is it worth trying to get them from there? Are there any differences between US & European models that can't be changed in settings? Any other considerations or good alternatives?

Any help appreciated. Thanks!

devnull

My girlfriend has a DV6 since July or so and has had no problems whatsoever whilst I myself have a DV6799ea which I've had for over a couple of years which is still going strong. My girlfriend had a DV2104eu before that and had no problems either.

They didn't get that favourable results recently in a survey as posted on here, but I suspect most of that was because HP tended to use the famous overheating nvidia chips a few years ago quite a lot, which caused a fair few failures.

The DV6's are like a cut down version of the HDX on a smaller scale, the DV6's are still very nice, but not as fancy as it's older HDX brothers.

angel01

I myself have a DV6 laptop and I think it is brilliant, I couldn't recommend it enough. It is a brilliant laptop and very dependable, reliable and fast.

I have had no issues with it and personally I believe HP laptops to be really good and have never had one single problem over the years.

I play games, browse online, do MSN, twitter etc and it works perfectly The hard disk storage is quite big and the RAM that I have makes the laptop very fast and it performs really well. You would be probably better looking online for them, probably get a much better price.

Overheal

I have a dv6000 from yesteryear and I presume very much the DV6 is just a revamped model of the same.

They're good laptops. Relatively light I would think for their size because of the plastic chassis but I have the heavy 12 cell battery so it makes little difference. I'd almost rather an aluminum lid. Plastic Lid makes me nervous.

Battery life is ~4-5 hours tops when you have the Graphics option and the 12 cell but it performs well. Theres no webcam software and the fingerprint scanner is gimmicky. After a while I stopped using it. And Hope to Ganesh they've replaced the old Microphone with one that does Noise Canceling. That thing couldnt be heard over the machine's own vibrations.

The 8 series geforce card overheated on me. Long story. Faulty PoS. But its been replaced and running good. HP support isnt entirely useless but you Do have to go through hoops to get anything done with them. They dont rate the best or anything for that sort of thing.

You could do worse definitely. I just upgraded my old one to 4GB and its running great as ever. Plays WoW like butter plays L4D reasonably and can chug Crysis with polite coaxing. Of late though I use it more for hulu movies and ****.

Swindon

purchased the dv-6 two months back and im very happy with it,ticks over nicely and its a solid laptop that gives good performance...sleek design too

Overheal

sleek indeed. keys are ssssmooth

Seamu$

Thanks for all the feedback! Seems to be quite a few happy DV6 owners out there. HDX seems to be a bit more obscure, will have to make a call if it's worth the extra.

As a matter of interest, any thoughts on purchasing it in the US and the price differential there?

Thanks all & Happy New Year!