The specs on this laptop are really good. 4 Core AMD Processor will keep things moving at a pretty fast pace, although it ranks below Intel I7's, it still performs very well. Also a large hard drive and the light up keyboard is especially nice when working on things at night. However the best part about the laptop is the video card. The ATI Mobility Radeon(tm) HD 5650 was really the selling point for me. Standard video cards that come with lower end laptops are often the bare minimums and all too often hold the performance of a laptop back. Such is not the case with this laptop. The video card is phenomenal for the price of the laptop. Overall great laptop performance wise. It looks really sweet too. However there is one drawback with HP's and its the preloaded software. I don't know if other company's do it, but this one came loaded with stuff and really hinders the performance. I have a Windows 7 Ult disc purchased previously so I installed my own version after I played with the preloaded OS and software for a bit. Most of the drivers are on the HP website so there really wasn't any trouble finding them(if you choose to do this, make a recovery disc first!). But i know someone else said that if you press F11 on the start up and do the recovery option you can choose to reinstall windows with a minimal installation which will get rid of the preloaded software but still install all the drivers. Highly recommend though if your looking for an above average laptop with an excellent video card.
Buy HP Pavilion dv6-3160us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Argento) Now
I bought the dv6-3052nr and HP replace another notebook with the dv6-3160us and here is what I discovered, first the comparison of systems:The dv6-3052nr has the following technical details:
Intel Core i7-720QM processor 1.60 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.80 GHz; 6 GB DDR3 System Memory (2 DIMM) Max supported = 8 GB; 500 GB (7200 RPM) Hard Drive; Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
15.6 Inch HD HP Brightview LED Display (1366x766); ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Graphics with up to 4091 MB total graphics memory with 1 GB dedicated; SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support and Lightscribe
Brushed aluminum finish with the stream design in argento (silver); HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated digital microphone; 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader
Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector); Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n WLAN
3 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0; 1 HDMI; 1 eSATA + USB 2.0; 1 VGA (15-pin); 1 RJ -45 (LAN); 1 Headphone-out/Microphone-in combo jack
The dv6-3160us has the following technical details:
AMD Phenom II Quad-Core Mobile Processor N950 (2.10GHz, 2MB Cache); 4GB DDR3 SDRAM memory (2 x 2GB) (expandable to 8GB); 640GB (5400 RPM) Serial ATA hard drive; Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
15.6 Inch diagonal High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768), ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 switchable graphics with 1GB dedicated DDR3 memory up to 2685MB total graphics memory
External Ports: 5-in-1 memory card reader; 4 USB 2.0 (4th port shared with eSATA); 1 HDMI; 1 VGA (15-pin); 1 RJ -45 (LAN); 1 Headphone-out; 1 Microphone-in
LightScribe Technology SuperMulti DVD Burner; Dolby Advanced Audio with Altec Lansing speakers; Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN; Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n WLAN & Bluetooth
Brushed aluminum finish; 101-key compatible with island-style full-size backlit keyboard; HP Clickpad with On/Off button; HP TrueVision Webcam with integrated digital microphone; HP SimplePass with integrated fingerprint reader
IMO PRO's:
3160 has a backlit keyboard and and that has helpful in where I can do work. I have been getting about 3.5 hours of use for the battery in the power-saving 4250 gpu and I only game when i have it plugged in (I only play wow so this is not a game review).
Other thoughts:
When using the better processor of the i7 over the Quad-AMD I did not see enough of a performance boost to warrant keeping the system over returning the 3052ns to Fry's when HP replaced another notebook I had with the 3160us. I had replaced the HDD with a 7200 RPM and upgraded the RAM to 6GB to make the processor the only difference. If you have a Quad but want to save money then get this model because all the other specs are the same except for the backlit keyboard and Ralink Wifi-BT adapter, also if you run UBUNTU Linux or Fedora 14 Linux then get the driver zip file from Ralink and follow the makefile commands to compile the driver from source code. I dual boot the 3160us and that was the only hiccup in Fedora but I did both for distro testing.
Now here on Amazon there is only a $100 difference but the invoice from HP showed the 3160us system as $741 and with tax at Fry's the 3052nr came to $1,092. You do the math and regardless of what the spec testing software says when you use both with clean installs and 1.5 seconds was the biggest time difference I could measure then I went AMD and never looked back.
Hope this helps
Upgrades I would recommend
9-cell battey becauses it raises the system up for better airflow and longer life unplugged.After decided that my office would be the new baby room I had to find an acceptable laptop that I could use as a replacement desktop. I work as an IT network admin so I had lots of resources and staff to give me some information. Originally I really wanted something with a 17" screen but in order to get a laptop with a GPU that I wanted within my budget I settled for the smaller screen and less resolution. The overall feel of the laptop is high quality and I really like the aluminum panels. Another feature that I really like is the backlit keyboard. I wasn't expecting to get this feature on a less expensive laptop and it makes working with the laptop in the dark easy and can be turned off with one button. I've read I can't remember how many reviews and the negative comments about the mouse pad. Being that I would use my Razor gaming mouse I wasn't concerned about the pad. But, I found the pad to be very easy to use regardless of the other complaints. It's large and sensitive and can easily be adjusted. One of the features that is missing off my wish list was a blue ray drive. But hey, what do you want for 700 bucks! If it becomes a real issue for me there are inexpensive external drives that are super small and would fit in my travel bag. There are plenty of outputs for just about everything and the laptop is substantially lighter than my wife's two year old HP that's the same size.
The Windows 7 64 bit OS has been great with our workstations at work so no surprises with the laptop there. The quad core AMD processor has yet to even blink when asked to do anything. Preloaded software was minimal (I hate saying bloat ware, it just sounds juvenile) and I removed most of it. I probably will max out the memory but I've only had the laptop a few days so I'll make sure that everything is ok before spending the money to do the upgrade. Connecting to either a wireless or wired network was no problem and speed was great. The bio scanner is cool for password authentication and makes login into everything that much quicker. OK, now onto the important part, games. The dual GPUs work awesome! The Radeon HD 5650 is more than capable of some serious gaming. Connecting it to a larger monitor was also easy and the graphic didn't suffer any.
Overall I'm very happy with my purchase and don't regret settling for a smaller monitor. I feel that the quality of the materials and construction will help this unit last a very long time. I don't know about battery life being that this will be used primarily at a desktop but it will be nice to be able to take it with me when I travel. One con that I will list is the keys to the left side of the keyboard. People who are used to typing on a standard keyboard with tab, caps and so on that are the end keys will be a bit confused at first and hit these keys. I will get use to it over time but the keys were not really necessary or could have been placed somewhere else (minus 1 star). I would make the purchase again and will also recommend this laptop to family and friends.
*UPDATE*
The laptop HD has failed and will need to be replaced. Its my fault but I lost picture of my baby that I can never get back. Laptop continues to get hotter each time I play a game. I got a coller pad for it but its still runs very hot! Im starting to think that I made the wrong choice. There was also an issue with the sound ports for head phones on the side and was shipped back to be repaired. Its only a few months old!
I have purchased a RAID external backup for my wife and my laptops. Well see how HPs services is.....
Want HP Pavilion dv6-3160us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Argento) Discount?
I've been meaning to buy a Quad-Core Phenom II mobile for some time now, and there isn't much out there. There are upcoming BE (Black Edition) mobile CPUs but those have not hit the market yet. I have a desktop Phenom II X4 940 BE and it just blows my builds away so I'd figure gotta have those mobile versions. I did a lot of research and this laptop is prolly the best at the time of this writing ;-)PROs:
1) Quad-Core Phenom II N950 2.1GHz CPU. There is an N970 CPU on HP's site but I'd figure a 100MHz difference wouldn't really matter.
2) 4Gb DDR3 1333 MHz RAM. I thought it was only 1066 MHz but when I got to the BIOS lo and behold it was using DDR3-1333!!!
3) ATI HD 5650 / HD 4250 switchable graphics. Plays most modern games. Also supported by Xorg (on non-Windows OS), was able to dual-boot w/ FreeBSD/Xorg using the ati or radeonhd driver!!!
4) HDMI and VGA when you want to extend your monitor
5) eSATA port, if you have external storage you carry around and you want to use SATA speeds instead of USB
6) 15.6" LED screen, instead of LCD
7) Brushed aluminum finish, doesn't leave pesky fingerprints
8) Back-lit keyboard, when you're working in the dark
9) GigE LAN
10) WLAN b/g/n
11) Bluetooth, if you're on the road and need to tether to your ISP
12) SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW w/ Double Layer Support and Lightscribe
CONs:
1) There's some extra keys (calc, printer etc) at the leftmost of the keyboard w/c, might interfere w/ your typing, but you'd get used to it.
2) The left side kinda heats
Hardware upgrades I made:
1) Samsung MV-3T4G4 4GB DDR3 Laptop SDRAM (1333MHz PC3-10600) just to up it to 6GB
2) Western Digital Scorpio 750 GB 2.5-Inch SATA 3GB/s 7200rpm 16 MB Cache Internal Bulk/OEM Hard Drive WD7500BPKT (Black)
3) Also bought Notebook Cooler . to cool things down
I'm always monitoring the CPU/Core temperature using CoreTemp and I've noticed I've not passed 76C when doing heavy intensive stuff. The notebook cooler brought it down to 72C. On normal usage (browsing et al) it's just around 45-52C. So while the left-side kinda heats, I'm not worried about it. I had an Asus K52 (Core i3 350M) w/c went up to 86C doing heavy intensive stuff! If you get past 90C then that's the time you worry ;-)
Over-all, extremely satisfied !!! HP/AMD FTW ;-)
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