HP

Product Description

HP Pavilion dv6-3050us Entertainment Notebook PC. Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit; Phenom II Quad Core N930; 15.6 LED; 4096MB DDR3; 640GB; DVDRW LightScribe; ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Graphics with 1GB dedicated video memory; 5-1 Reader; 802.11 b/g/n + BT; Low Light Webcam + Digital Microphone; Chiclet keyboard, click pad, backlit Logo, Fingerprint Reader; Brushed aluminum with the stream design in argento; 6 cell high capacity battery.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3384 in Personal Computers
• Color: Argento
• Brand: HP
• Model: WQ687UA#ABA
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.37" h x 9.65" w x 14.88" l, 5.46 pounds
• CPU: Phenom Quad-Core 2 Hz
• Memory: 4GB SODIMM
• Hard Disk: 640GB
• Graphics: Radeon HD 5650 1024MB
• Processors: 4
• Battery type: Lithium Ion
• Native resolution: 1366 x 768
• Display size: 14.1

Features

• VISION Technology from AMD - Ultimate with AMD Phenom? II Quad-Core Mobile Processor N930
• 4GB DDR3
• 640GB (5400RPM) SATA with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection, LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW
• 15.6" diagonal High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768), ATI Mobility Radeon? HD 5650
• Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit

From the Manufacturer
Keep the HP Pavilion dv6-3050us Entertainment Notebook PC in sync with your smartphone and connect to a wireless printer using integrated Bluetooth®. Watch DVDs on the 15.6-inch diagonal High-Definition LED BrightView display and video chat in low-light environments using the integrated HP webcam. Launch common apps with the touch of a finger using this HP laptop’s one-touch action keys, plus manage your passwords easily using the integrated fingerprint reader and exclusive HP SimplePass software. Count on an HP laptop that suits your style. The sleek HP Pavilion dv6-3050us Entertainment Notebook PC is finished in brushed aluminum with the stream design in argento. Burn custom labels onto CDs and DVDs using LightScribe Technology and transfer photos from a digital camera to your notebook PC using the digital media reader. Expect great performance with a powerful AMD processor and premium audio. Browse the Web from any room using built-in Wi-Fi, plus enjoy up to 5.5 hours of battery life when you’re on the go.

Processor VISION Technology from AMD - Ultimate with AMD Phenom™ II Quad-Core Mobile Processor N930 Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit Display 15.6" diagonal High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768) Memory (RAM) 4GB DDR3 Hard Drive 640GB (5400RPM) SATA with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection Weight & Dimensions (w x d x h) 5.46 lbs; 14.88" x 9.65" x 1.21"/1.37" Battery Life Up to 4 hours Wireless Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n WLAN & Bluetooth® Optical Drive LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support Video Graphics ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650 graphics with 1024MB DDR3 with up to 2714MB total graphics memory Finish Brushed aluminum finish with the stream design in argento

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Fingerprint Reader Manage passwords easily using your fingerprint LightScribe Technology Burn labels directly onto CDs and DVDs Built-in HP Webcam Video chat live using your HP Pavilion dv6-3050us Entertainment Notebook PC 5-in-1 Digital Media Reader Transfer photos from a digital camera to your laptop PC without using cables Bluetooth® Save time with wireless synching and printing INCLUDED

Fingerprint Reader

HP SimplePass Identity Protection Keep passwords and important data safe HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection Help prevent data loss due to bumps or short drops HP QuickWeb Access your favorite websites fast HP MediaSmart Create, share and enjoy multimedia entertainment in one stop

Exclusive HP Software

Datasheet (PDF)

Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful.
The Phenom II N930 and Radeon 5650 Make this a Great Laptop
By The Crying Man
As an AMD fan, this laptop is perfect with its combination of a quad core CPU and Radeon 56xx series GPU. It has the best combination of aesthetic design, build quality, and components. It will be hard to find another laptop at a low price with these components and a 15.6" screen - others are 17" which can be bulky to carry around. The 1366x768 screen is good for tasks such as videos and gaming, but it might not be enough for those used to and require higher resolutions. The only negatives about this laptop are the lack of a firewire port (for the video folks) and an ExpressCard slot, and weak sound. Also, a couple things that aren't listed in the product description is that the HP logo on the lid lights up when turned on and an integrated Radeon 4250.

The Graphics
I recommend staying away from laptops by Toshiba, Sony, and Panasonic to prospective buyers that plan on playing games and considering similarly spec'd laptops. AMD offered to release Catalyst drivers for Mobility Radeons several months ago and these companies chose to opt out. This means that if there's a problem with the laptop's graphics driver e.g. game glitches, you will have to wait/hope that these companies release updated drivers instead of downloading ones released regularly by AMD.

As far as the Radeon 5650, it's been great thus far. I've been running Battlefield: Bad Company 2 smoothly at 1080p on an external monitor with settings on high, and AA and AF off. It will easily play most games out for the PC today and many games coming out. For the programmers out there interested in OpenCL, the 5650 is compatible and only requires downloading the Stream SDK from AMD.

The addition of the integrated Radeon 4250 is also welcomed. It allows for PowerXpress for power savings when running on battery or just to cut down on the electric bill. For those wondering, PowerXpress is AMD's version of switchable graphics. The general difference being PowerXpress is the combination of integrated and dedicated Radeon graphics, while switchable graphics is the combination of Intel HD integrated and either Nvidia or AMD graphics. This is another driver update consideration because Intel doesn't give driver updates to AMD for their graphics - users will have to rely on the company from which they buy their laptops.

The Processor
AMD mobile CPUs have gotten a bad reputation for running hot. It's my opinion that it's just laptop manufacturers choosing to pair cheap parts and poor cooling solutions with AMD CPUs because they're "cheap" processors. In fact, the areas that get hottest on the dv6 are the left palm rest where the hard drive resides underneath and the vent on the left side where the laptop fan shunts the heat produced by the CPU and GPU under full load. Rest assured that the dv6 will run as cool as laptops with the Core i processors.

Now, the N930 shouldn't be compared to the Core i7. This CPU is designed and priced to compete with the Core i5 and i3 CPUs. The caveat to comparing it to the i5 and i3 is that the i5 and i3 are dual core with the i5 able to trick Windows into thinking it has 4 cores through Intel's Hyperthreading technology. With Turbo Boost technology on both Core i3 and i5, the Intel processors will perform better on single threaded applications due to their ability to intelligently overclock while the N930 maxes out on its 2.0 GHz limit. The N930 shines with multithreaded programs where it matches or beats i5 processors. For most users, none of this matters since performance differences in everyday programs like web browsers and Microsoft Office are unnoticeable.

The Power Consumption
Because the N930 is a true quad core, actual battery life for the dv6 is 2.5-3 hours with wireless on, Radeon 4250 activated, and 60% screen brightness while doing light tasks like listening to music, web browsing, and typing documents. Laptops sporting CPUs with fewer cores will have longer battery life due to less cores needing power.

In any case, I highly recommend the dv6 to anyone looking for a laptop at a low price with its specifications. A solid processor with the combination of the Radeon 5650 and 4250 make this laptop an excellent purchase.

Error Corrections and Additions (2010-08-19):
- The hard drive is not under the left palm rest, but under the touchpad.
- The GPU is under the left palm rest, which is what is generating the heat there.
- The dv6-3050us is a United States quickship model for the dv6z Select Edition that's customizable on HP's website.
- This does not come with the backlit keyboard or touchscreen. It was mentioned in the comments, but I thought to add it here.
- The battery is a standard capacity 6 cell 55Wh battery.
- This does not come with recovery DVDs. HP has a utility pre-installed that allows users to make them, which requires 5 DVDs or a USB Flash drive of equal capacity. Dual layer and re-writables will not work. I recommend everyone make these recovery discs the first thing after Windows loads and store them somewhere safe. Make 2 sets if you want to be safe.
- [...]

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Amazing Laptop
By Bryan J. Hunt
This laptop is Amazing, it's fast' light weight and seems to be very well built.I got right at 4hrs on the battery while playing music, surfing the net and transferring files from my old laptop. The battery recharged in just about an hour.

The keyboard is solid all though it took a little getting use to, coming from my 17in Dell with a full size keyboard. The track pad is great with pinch to zoom and gestures.

The AMD quad core is powerful and hasn't missed a beat yet. The laptop stays cool and quiet the only time i hear a fan is when it's booting up.

This is a great laptop and i would buy this again in a heart beat

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
A very nice laptop, all around.
By Michael Gmirkin
I actually ordered this from HP Direct, since they had a good sale going on, which I heaped a coupon on top of. But, that's neither here nor there.

I'm glad I opted for this unit rather than one of the units with a dual-core Turion II Ultra and a 17.3" screen. Honestly, to me, the 15.6" screen seems utterly ginormous. The laptop is definitely large and relatively 'in charge'...

Pros:
- Seemingly huge widescreen LCD.
- 2 GHz quad-core Phenom II mobile processor.
- Fingerprint recognition (didn't think I'd use this much; now I wonder how I ever lived without it, as I never even type my password to log in to the system any more, since a simple swipe of the finger logs me in)
- Dual ATI video chips for high-performance and power-saving uses.
- Nearly every port, communication device and connector you'll ever need (Ethernet, WiFi B/G/N, Bluetooth, VGA out, HDMI out, SD card reader, several USB 2 ports)
- Massive 640GB hard drive.
- QuickWeb Instant-On environment (lets to power directly into a limited windowed environment to connect to the web, certain online e-mail systems, stream video, listen to your music library, access an event calendar and one or two other functions).
- It looks nice. It has an aluminum (I think) outer body, with a pleasant but not overly elaborate design etched into it.

Cons:
- HD is 5400 rather than 7200 RPM. Haven't decided yet whether this will be a bottleneck on the system. I hope not. Startup doesn't seem SIGNIFICANTLY faster than Windows XP. A few seconds shaved off here and there. Not sure whether that's a HD seek-time / read-time issue, or if Windows 7 just innately has more stuff to load up.
- There is a lot of pre-loaded software that folks may want to take off.
- Doesn't come with a hard copy of startup discs. You have to burn your own restore media to a DVD or flash drive. The system only lets you burn them once. So, if you lose them, you're SOL.
- By default, the fingerprint reader only lets you set up 8 fingers, not all 10. It's unclear why this is so or how to fix it. A rather silly and arbitrary setting.
- When going from wall power to battery power, the system will switch from a high-power video chip to a low-power video chip. The switch in hardware sometimes causes software to hang if it doesn't know how to deal with the change. Best to close as much software as possible before switching chips, or else leave the high-power chip running and deal with the reduced battery life.
- The QuickWeb environment seems to not be as good at playing streaming video as Windows proper is, so if you maximize the video it sometimes becomes quite blocky or stuttery. Not sure why this should be so.
- The left and right mouse buttons are built into the touchpad and are 'touchy' to say the least. If you tap-click either of them it only works as a left-click. I haven't found a way to set the right button to tap-click as a contextual menu right click. Since they're touch sensitive, if you try to push the buttons manually by pressing down on them, you will likely end up unintentionally moving the cursor off what you were trying to click in the first place before the button is fully depressed. This has become rather noisome. I haven't yet found an adequate software or hardware workaround/hack to make this function 'as-expected.'

Overall, I very much like this laptop. I can't really compare it to any other models out there, since I only need one laptop, really.

The QuickWeb environment is nifty for quickly powering in to a usable environment and surfing the web wirelessly from our WiFi router. Setup was pretty simple. Only take about 1-2 seconds to power into it and 3-5 seconds after you click the browser icon for it to hook up to the WiFi, on average (it's a bit odd that it doesn't hook up immediately, so you get a 'page not found' error, but as soon as it connects, it automatically refreshes the page and connects, so you're up and running).

The fingerprint scanner is a rather nice feature. I never log in manually anymore. Much easier to just swipe a random finger and let it figure out who's logging in, and have it load the appropriate desktop (I only have one desktop, but I'm quite certain that's how it works; it does the heavy lifting). It'll also let you set up website password storage where you can just swipe your finger as authentication. I actually somewhat prefer to type web passwords manually, so I can remember them. But I can see how some folks might be lazy enough to use it, and for them it probably would be handy.

I haven't started gaming on it yet, but with what appear to be some pretty decent video chips built-in, I have little doubt it should do pretty well on the gaming front.

The quad-core processor seems to power through Seti@Home computations like they were nothing. It seems BOINC can make use of the GPU for additional computing power, too. So things it predicts should take about 156 hours take about 54 hours. Things BOINC figures on being about 8 hours are done in about 4-5. At least that seems to be the case so far.

Unlike the one or two other reviewers, I have not encountered any problems with this unit, in terms of defective parts or hardware failures. One assumes they're simply one-offs and not a systemic problem. Granted, I did buy mine from HP, so there may be some additional room for jostling and breakage by buying retail where things get shipped from warehouse to warehouse, then by the Post Office or FedEx before arriving at the end-user's home or business. Not saying that's THE reason things break. Just one possibility. HP does warranty its new products for a full year. They also offer extended warranties for a little extra money if you're really worried about breakage and up-time.

So, in general, I find this to be pretty much everything I was expecting... Yay for a new laptop! :)