Review - HP DV6703TX

[Akshay]

CONFIGURATION:

* Intel Core 2 Due processor T5450 (1.67 GHz)
* 15.4"" WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display
* 160 GB (5400 RPM) Hard Drive
* 2048 MB DDR2 SDRAM (2 Dimm)
* Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/b/g 802 11a/b/g WLAN & Bluetooth
* LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD+-RW with Double Layer Support
* 6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery
* HP QuickPlay
* 5-in-1 Digital Media Reader
* ExpressCard/54 PC Card Slot
* HP Mobile Remote Control
* nVidia GeForce 8400M GS with 256MB DDR dedicated graphics memory
* Window Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
* Fingerprint Reader
* HP Webcam
* Expansion Port 3
* HP Pavilion WebCam with Integrated Microphones
* Carry case

External Ports

* 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, MultiMedia cards, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, or xD Picture cards
* 3 USB 2.0
* 1 HDMI
* 1 VGA port
* 1 RJ11 modem connector
* 1 RJ45 ethernet connector
* Expansion Port 3
* S-video TV out
* 2 headphones-out
* 1 mic-in
* 1 IEEE 1394
* Consumer IR
* AC adapter

Weight 2.78 kg

COST: Rs.49000 all inclusive

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FEATURES
The notebook has a unique feature - ‘capacitive’ touch technology for accessing the audio, launch buttons, and volume controls. By just touching, tapping or swiping these backlit media launch buttons in a very similar manner as on a touch pad, user can have direct access to entertainment objects.

It also comes with HP QuickPlay 2.1 application which allows users to watch DVD movies, listen to music and browse pictures without booting up and users can easily switch between movies, music and pictures with a slick, widescreen interface in the HP QuickPlay 2.1 application or with the dedicated media buttons.

I have somehow not been able to play the DVD's without turning on the OS. Will have to give it more try to know how exactly to do that. Touching the DVD button launches Vista and then the Quickplay starts.

The built in webcam delivers great pictures. The quality is good enough for you to not buy another webcam.

SOFTWARES

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Edition preinstalled HP Pavilion dv6703TX notebook PC comes with various software including MS Works 8.0, Acrobat Reader , Microsoft Money, HP QuickPlay Direct 2.3 , Quickplay for Windows Version 2.3, Muvee Autoproducer, Sonic Digital Media Plus 7.0, HP Games by Oberon Media, HP Photosmart Premier, Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security software.

First of all I uninstalled Symantec Norton Internet Security, Trial ver of Office 2007 and installed Quickheal Internet security 2008, Office 2007.

DRIVERS

All the drivers and installation files are located in c:\swsetup. I created a copy of all the drivers/softwares there on a DVD n deleted the folder (it occupies around 3 GB space)

DISPLAY & SOUND

The display is awesome and you can really look forward to watching HD movies on this laptop. The sound quality is also quite good.

BATTERY LIFE

Battery life isnt much to talk about. A normal 2-3 hours battery life... With gaming, it will further come down. So if you are always on the move, go 4 a 9 cell battery.

KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD

The Pavilion's keyboard is ample and comfortable to type on for long periods, and both touchpad and mouse buttons are entirely usable. However, I seem to be still hung on my old compaq laptop and sometimes the scroll on the touchpad causes me to accidentally misplace.

PARTITIONS

I had to shrink C:\ to create new partitions. I shrunk it to 70GB. Inspite of no new installations, I only had 40GB free space left!!! So after tweaking pagefile.sys n hiber*.sys, I freed some space. Uninstalling trial ver. of Office 2007, Norton, HP Games helped freeing more space.

So now I have
C:\- 70GB; D:\ -19.5GB ; E:\ - 25.3GB; F:\ - 23.4; G:\ - 10.5GB(HP RECOVERY PARTITION); H:\ - Lightscribe DVD Writer

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SPACE RESERVED TO COMPLETE THE REVIEW

Current Status - Crysis Demo Installed. Seems to be working pretty well (will post settings soon. Dunno how to go about FPS. Can some1 tell me how to calculate FPS for crysis?). With Doom3 I get around 65fps with about medium settings.

PS:The images n few paras have been sourced from other forums which cannot be mentioned here. So I am not giving away the "credits"

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[iMav]

amazing thanks my cousin has been wanting to buy a decent lappy

1 sec theres no differnce between the 6516tx and this 1

[Akshay]

I dunno about the config of 6516tx. So cant say about dat. But I m happy wit 6703tx. U shud advise ur cousin to go 4 it.
Edit: 6516 comes wit 128mb graphics card...

[ax3]

nice 1 ...... monstrous HP lappy bt battery ne gaal kaar di ......

imo, baterry should last @least 6-8 hours ........ toh maaza aayega .....

[Choto Cheeta]

Battery life isnt much to talk about. A normal 2-3 hours battery life... With gaming, it will further come down. So if you are always on the move, go 4 a 9 cell battery.

Huh ?? please let us know what test did you perfome whle testing the battery ?? I mean 2 to 3 hours a full 1 hour margine is not some thing u shouldnt write.. 10 min is exceptable, but that type value is some thing certainly not exceptable

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Edition preinstalled HP Pavilion dv6703TX notebook PC comes with various software including MS Works 8.0, Acrobat Reader , Microsoft Money, HP QuickPlay Direct 2.3 , Quickplay for Windows Version 2.3, Muvee Autoproducer, Sonic Digital Media Plus 7.0, HP Games by Oberon Media, HP Photosmart Premier, Norton Antivirus and Norton Internet Security software.

is it home basic or home premium ?? any DVD provided ?? all these softwares, are they prinstalled only ?? what about driver DVD ?? what did it contain ??

The display is awesome and you can really look forward to watching HD movies on this laptop. The sound quality is also quite good.

once again, please explain your testing method I mean which codec and what player u used while u play HD, and upto what resolution did u play it ??

[Akshay]

@chotocheeta

OS - It is vista home premium which comes preinstalled. Thr is no vista dvd with it though it has language pack on media. Everything got installed/configured the 1st time I started the laptop. No driver cd is provided with it.

Battery - I played FEAR for almost 2 hours and the battry had come down to 11%. I didnt want it to go down further so I started charging it again. When I chose PowerSaver and used it for surfing and MS Office only, at the end of 2.40min, battry still had 17% left in it.

Display - While setting up Windows media center, there was a clip which said it was how the HD movies wud luk like and the display was much much bettr den DVD. I had installed K Lite pack b4 trying out stuff. So I dunno if klite was at work or vista had it all. Display was set at 1200*800 pixels at 32bit. I tried searching for .wmv files on my hdd to rerun the file but havent been able to locate it till now.

[Pat]

Nice review buddy Keep the good work up

[hellgate]

Originally Posted by Choto Cheeta

is it home basic or home premium ?? any DVD provided ?? all these softwares, are they prinstalled only ?? what about driver DVD ?? what did it contain ??

returned te Compaq C713TU and got the HP DV2701TX Special Edition for 49k total with 2*1GB ram.
hp doesnt bundle the os dvd with the lappies.but u cn create recovery dvds.
all softwares r preinstalled but hp does give the setup files of all preloaded softwares and drivers inside the SwSetup folder which is located in C:\.
u can always make a copy of it.

[The Conqueror]

Nice Review

[Akshay]

I am playing Crysis as well as Doom 3 (whenevr time permits). I had to scale down a few settings to get the most out of the system.

I want to post my FPS results here. How do I do that in Crysis n Doom 3?

Edit: In doom 3 press Ctrl + Alt + ~ n enter - com_showfps 1. Waiting for crysis now...

[Gigacore]

good review, but whats the price?

[genxguy]

Nice review.

Can you explain whats the points in having two headphone output

[Akshay]

@gigacore

Price was arnd 49k all incl. last month. Must hav come down evn further.

@genxguy

2 ppl can plugin 1 headphone each n listen to music...?

It has 2 mics as well - one integrated with HP webcam n one mic slot near d headphone slots.

[Ankur Gupta]

Originally Posted by Akshay

@gigacore

Price was arnd 49k all incl. last month. Must hav come down evn further.

@genxguy

2 ppl can plugin 1 headphone each n listen to music...?

It has 2 mics as well - one integrated with HP webcam n one mic slot near d headphone slots.

It does have two mics but not the two places you located them at.
It has two microphones on either side of the webcam.
It is the microphone port that is near the headphone ports

[Akshay]

^^ Dats wht I meant (n shud hav said port instead of slot). Thnx 4 correcting.