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Review: HP Pavilion Entertainment dv4t Laptop

10.17.08 - 06:08pm

Part of the HP Freshman 15 promotion that I’ve enjoyed the most was having a dv4t sent to me. The part I don’t like is the bit about having to send it out to one of you after wards. I’m admittedly an Apple fanboy with my heart set on another Macbook but the dv4t did a respectable job in showing me that there still does exist a healthy mobile computer market outside of Apple.

The Specs

When I was intially asked to choose a laptop and saw the dv4t, I wasn’t very impressed with the specifications. The base dv4t costs $599 currently at HP.com and packs an Intel Pentium 2GHz T3200 processor, 1GB of memory, a 14.1″ screen, a 160GB hard drive, Intel integrated graphics, and a DVD-RW drive. When I opened the box though I was quite shocked. This particular dv4t was packing an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz T9600 processor(unavailable on HP.com!), 4GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive, a Nvidia 9200M GS graphic card, a Blu-Ray drive, and a 250GB “SmartBay” hard drive. Since a few items packed into this laptop aren’t currently available for the general public I’d estimate this laptop has a worth around $2200, 3.6 times that of the base model. In addition to the hardware specs the laptop also includes an integrated webcam and a fingerprint scanner.

Since this laptop is being marketed towards the student or single-computer individual, I tried my hardest to solely use the laptop and bring it along whenever I could find an excuse to. Weighing in at 5.2 pounds and 15.7″ from corner to corner, the dv4t isn’t a light netbook but it isn’t a desktop replacement either. I was easily able to carry the dv4t and charger on walks across campus, to friend’s houses, and around town. Speaking of the charger, battery life on average was about 3 hours with general web surfing and writing.

dv4t as an Entertainment Center

College students typically have a scarcity of space in their dorm rooms and therefore must make the best use of their limited space. As a general laptop this dv4t functions perfectly with ample processing power and sufficient memory to make even Vista seem snappy. The 320gb hard drive has a separate 10gb partition on it for HP’s recovery software leaving you with a little under 290gb of storage space, more than enough for anything besides a hefty movie collection. Using the laptop to watch movies worked out well but in the age of high definition television the 14.1″ 1280×800 pixel screen was a bit limiting. Hopping onto my bed though and watching a movie with my girlfriend went well, just don’t expect to open up a movie theater with this as the focal piece.

Temperatures and Cooling

Laptops are notorious for having incredibly high idle temperatures and even higher load temperatures. With the laptop sitting at idle in Vista the processor cores were idling around 41C with the room temperature around 26C. Tossing the laptop onto my bed so that it’s exhaust port was slightly blocked with my blankets raised the idle temperatures up to 44C. This was actually quite surprising and very acceptable for a laptop, my desktop even idles at higher temperatures than this. Loading one processor core to 100% increased the temperatures to 61C on the desk and 66C on the bed. At this point the center of the backside of the laptop was starting to warm up. Loading both cores resulted in 74C on the desk and 81C on the bed. Watching an H.264 encoded 720p MP4 resulted in a processor utilization of ~25% so you shouldn’t even see greater than ~60C while watching a movie in bed. Given the ample amount of insulation on the backside of the laptop, it never became unbearably hot although the exhaust port did blow out a hot stream of air.

Observations

A few things stand out on the dv4t that bugged me a bit. First and foremost, the trackpad. HP chose a metal cover for the trackpad and my finger just stuck to the thing rather than slide. This makes using the trackpad for more than 15 seconds frustrating as your scrolling and dragging turns into a jerky dance across the screen. Having the audio ports on the front of the laptop caused problems as I then had my speaker cables sitting underneath my right arm when typing which was an annoyance. Using the QuickPlay buttons at the top of the laptop could be frustrating at times as the sound buttons would choose at times to simply be unresponsive.

Now for the things I really liked. The keyboard keys have a key travel similar to a regular desktop keyboard, great for hammering out lots of text quickly. The keyboard itself is also fullsized, no miniaturized keys that you have to nitpick at. The Altec Lansing speakers were both crisp and loud enough to satisfy my desire for music on the go. The HP SmartBay was a great idea as I immediately removed the BluRay drive and inserted the spare 250GB drive. I’d like to see the ability to RAID the internal and SmartBay and include a dock for the BluRay drive in the future. RAID1 in a mobile platform would provide even greater data safety in the case of drive failure.

All in all the dv4t was a solid laptop that impressed me with the hardware it was packing. Even in a cheaper trim it’s still a decent option for a college student. For the cost of this particular laptop I’d prefer an Apple Macbook Pro but for the sub-$1000 bracket the dv4t would be a great option. Check back here tomorrow to see how you can go about winning this laptop.

Category: Articles, Hardware, Review