HP Pavilion dv6-6140us Entertainment Notebook PC (Silver)

By 

spin_nin (Chicago, Illinois United States) –

  

Felt solid out of the box. Looks excellent. Rich feature set and a excellent price at just $649 (now just $599!).

Just take a look at the specs – this apparatus looks GREAT on paper. A8 AMD Quad core processor, 6 gigs of RAM (A 4GB stick & 2GB stick, both made by Samsung) is upgradable to 8GB, 640GB HD (the HD in all 3 of the dv6-6140us’ I tried were made by Toshiba…what is this? coopetition?) For the most part it has all it promises.

HOWEVER – I reckon I got a dud because the only issue / issues I have are with the show.

I also get the shadow on the start up in the lower right hand corner of the screen every time I turn on or wake up this laptop (just as noted by another reviewer).

When it was groundbreaking new, just out of the box, I got the horizontal lines streaking across the screen as did another reviewer. They appear all over the screen, random placement, horizontally. That hasn’t happened since I was initially setting up the notebook but now I get the same shadow he does in the lower right hand corner of the screen.

The screen also dims & brightens noticeably when scrolling up & down a page – most apparent when surfing the web. Completely random occurrence here again.

I’m hesitant to have this issue fixed as I’d rather have the PC replaced. It seems to be a rare malfunction but if you buy one be aware of this when you get yours & look out for it (a name told me that it had something to do with the settings on the GPU?).

All else works fine. This is a lot of PC for the cash. No argument there.

I didn’t reckon much of the “beatsaudio” at first when I played a CD on the PC. Then I watched a movie with some Skullcandy Titan In Ear Bud S2TTCB-047 (Black/Chrome). The sound was really excellent. I took the earbuds out and adjusted the volume on WMP. That was when the sound quality improved. Nice for a laptop. Nothing really happened when I opened up the beatsaudio control panel to try & tweak the sound initially. It just got more & more distorted. Somehow, it seemed to wake itself up when I played the movie with removing the earbuds. Weird.

I was disappointed that HP’s Mediasmart software suit is gone. You have to pay extra to get the features from the included software that were standard with the ancient Mediasmart package (the PC I bought that had it was last existence model – the hp dv6-3120us). Some people might find it “gimmicky” but the kids liked to play with “special things” on the webcam and now I have to pay an extra $24.99 to add it to the included software on the new PC. If you want the “Ultra” version of Cyberlink’s software for DVD’s & Blue-Ray it’s $59.99 for hp users (naturally $79.99). Nearly all the software is upgradable. If hp really wants to go head to head with the MPA or MBP, those sweet apparatus INCLUDE all the software you need for movies & music.

The fingerprint reader is very nice. Sometimes it takes a few tries but its better than entering passwords.

I was expecting more from the HD webcam. It’s not “terrible” by any means I just thought it would be better than what it is.
Wireless connection worked immediately during set up. Seemed to run slow so I went into the settings and adjusted it. Seems like that is a common thing here. You have to check & adjust settings to get what you want out of the PC.

Battery Life, for me, has been outstanding. Considering all that is going on inside this laptop it is running longer than I expected. Nearly 5 hours on a single charge.

This notebook runs very cool & very silent. Even the optical drive doesn’t make much noise when running at top alacrity. I can hear the Hard Drive when it’s being accessed. It’s not super loud but it is noticeable.

Since its still VERY new, & there is a lot more to explore, that is all I have for right now. I will continue to check it out until my last day for a full refund or replacement.

Due to the screen issue & only due to the screen issue – I would hesitate to recommend this PC to anyone at this time.

Hope this helps.

What’s fantastic about it: Processor, Storage space, memory, fingerprint reader, beats audio, battery life
What’s not so fantastic: The show / screen issues

UPDATE as of 9/2/11

With returning the initial dv6-6140us to Staples (dreadful process) I bought another one from amazon with tiresome out an ASUS K53TA from Best Buy (cheap PC & it was slow) that was returned. I have to send the 2nd hp dv6-6140us back to amazon (I requested a replacement). What happened now? Well, the function keys are not responding with 1 day of ownership & the light around the touchpad is out. Updated the PC – Windows, Drivers, & BIOS updates from hp. Installed (Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011…

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PROS:
When I first received the laptop, the box was a bit beat up, which worried me a bit, but shrugged it off once I saw the way it was packed. Aesthetic wise, the laptop is very sleek and the island keyboard prevents it from getting really dirty. The style is nice, and all works smoothly. I played Heroes of Newerth, Starcraft 2, CSS, and TF2 all on high graphics in its native resolution and it runs smoothly. I didn’t notice this till 2 days with I got it, but there is a button specifically for the internet (a one-click button to open the default web browser), I was impressed by that. Fingerprint reader is very accurate, and allows for quick log-in into most websites. Laptop is pretty quick in the applications I’ve run so far, and temperature wise, stays below critical levels all of the time (so far) and I tend to run laptops until they literally fry.

CONS:
A bunch of bloatware, doesn’t take much to get it off tho.
Mouse Clicker is indeed very loud, I use a USB mouse tho, so it’s not that huge a deal for me personally.
largest gripe so far is battery life, it only really lasts 2-3 hours (tho it is variable based on screen brightness and activity. These negatives tho really don’t take away from the laptops performance, so for the price I paid for it, its certainly a excellent buy.

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Pros: At first I was hesitant to buy HP because of all the crap they load on their pc’s and usually their prices are a small higher. When I saw the specs on this pc tho, I knew I had to get it. The bloatware isn’t as significant as older hp laptops, With a few uninstalls here and there you are excellent to go. The laptop can be compared to my gaming pc in terms of regular performance, in many things they are very similar except the graphics card. Basically the laptop is pretty quick in most things. On the laptop you can play games like team fortress 2 maxed out in native resolution cause of the decent graphics card. That’s the most I expected from this. The laptop is also very very silent.

Cons: the glossy black around the screen is a dust magnet. The battery life is a small more than 3 hours while using internet but that’s to be expected I would reckon.

By and large pretty awesome laptop and you get a free xbox. This review is having the laptop with a few days so don’t buy the product solely because of my review.

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