How would you change HP's Pavilion dv2?
By Darren Murph 
posted May 23rd 2009 5:18AM
posted May 23rd 2009 5:18AM
posted May 23rd 2009 5:18AM
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Wait, that thing is supposed to be a netbook?!
Not really.
Its not a crappy underpowered netbook and its not an "over the top" ultra-portable like the Sony TZ or Macbook Air. It lies in the middle.
I want the next version to have dual core Neo and Windows 7. Give me that and consider it sold.
Get rid of Vista and have it run OSX. Oh, and get rid of Vista.
As someone who bought and returned a DV2, I really spend a lot of time trying hard to like it.
Unfortunately it was too expensive for what it did, which was an overglorified movie watching machine. Please bear in mind that it -can- do a lot of other things, but the single core CPU made almost everything very frustrating for me. That's by far the worst component of the machine. Without hyperthreading it doesn't mask the problem well, leading to frequent stalls and stutters in various applications.
Once you get something up and running it usually wasn't too bad, but I was constantly struggling against the limitations of the system.
So...
1. Cpu must be two threaded or have something equivalent to hyperthreading to avoid irritating stalls. (Putting on Windows 7 helped, mind you.)
2. The graphics card should be switched out with the 4000 series. Why are they still using the 55nm parts when the 40nm parts are already here and much better? Frustrating. That alone would improve the battery life.
3. Stop using the old chipset when the newer one is already out. This wasn't as frustrating, but still... Felt like they were purposely trying to make it worse.
4. The LCD panel, while great in a lot of ways, suffered from poor black reflections. It also had extremely bad vertical angles making it nearly impossible to view all of the LCD at the same time from a distance of a few feet. At least not without the top corner black areas blending into grey reflections. Livable, but it was a factor.
5. Despite lowering the voltage it still got hot. HP's brain-dead Bios didn't help much as it had about four options, none of which did anything useful. I know it's early tech and we're pushing the limit, but we're not pushing it that far as it was clearly using outdated tech as it was.
6. The touch pad was 'sticky' and I really didn't like it for that reason only.
7. Endless seas of bloatware. Livable, but tedious. Especially loading down an underpowered laptop with it. Ugh.
8. While I liked the idea of not having to have the DVD burner, when I added up having to bring it along 'just in case' and the power adapter, the weight savings really started to drift away. It just didn't have the battery life to be able to avoid bringing along the power adapter everywhere, unfortunately, and the adapter was pretty big and got very hot.
9. My first unit had a faulty power connector. Not the end of the world, but I heard that a lot of the units were broken initially.
There's a lot to like about this laptop. I'd be tempted to get another one if the next generation turns out to be better, but a lot of the initial luster was lost in the simple contemplation of tossing 600-1000 on what amounts to a toy laptop. I just couldn't live with that in the end.
Remove the awful wide lower rim below the screen.
Try as I might, I'm looking at the picture and I just can't figure out what you're talking about.
Well Hp seems to be very stylish . I used the dv series, style and good value for money till screen faults and battery problem.
Hope this is not another beautiful but less efficent item
LavaComp
Home of Cheap Laptops Pc.
too expensive... even though its said to have better performance and also the battery life... someone needs to sit down a actually work on a good battery technology so we get to use the machine on full power for a full day without a recharge ... and also a wide screen version the dv2 seems to have a 4:3 screen witch is not good and makes the note book look big
it is widescreen, but the bezel on the top and bottom is so big that it seems like it is 4:3. That needs to change.
I saw this at Office Depot today, it says it comes with and external DVD/Lightscribe burner... so it's really a bill cheaper... and it was like $50 off the MSRP too. It's about one bill more than the Dells and top end Acers. It feels more like a "real" notebook than a netbook even compared to HP's netbook offering I've seen in person at the store too.
I'm curious about performance and max ram compared to other small books, If it doesn't have the silly netbook limits that would justify the extra cost for the "real" OS version.
Aside from the obvious hardware changes, I'd remove those damn concentric circles!
Agreed, they looked like those star trek like controls Acer had on one of their laptops...
remove that ugly silver strip around the ports and vents.. looks really ugly...
plus... HP sucks... i work at an electronics store.... and HP and Toshi(t)ba are getting returned like ugly babies are dropped by their mothers...
I know Toshiba is crap, I didn't know that HP was that bad. I know electronic store shoppers tend not to be all that savvy. So, which brands are not returned all that often?
I'm in the market (well, when Windows 7 comes out).
I wouldn't say HP sucks... Some of their products are crap, while some are just amazing. I have an HP HDX 16 with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 duo with and Nvidia 9600M GT and I love it to death. I know it can't play super-duper high end games like Crysis and whatnot, but I don't even play those kinds of games. In any case, HP has good products if you know where you're looking. I used to have an HP Compaq Presario v3000... Worst laptop of my life: 1.6 AMD turion, Nvidia Geforce Go 6150 (really crappy graphics card), the cd/dvd drive was the most unreliable piece of crap on there, XP was laggy while Vista ran fine (Yea, the opposite of what's expected), idled at 70 degrees C, and went to 100 degrees C playing games, and went to ~ 125 degrees C in Safe Mode... I'm glad I got a better laptop now. I know 16 inch notebooks aren't well known for their mobility, but I have no problems carrying around this baby wherever I go, and I have yet to encounter a problem with the hardware.
I work at an electronics store too, but not much that we sell in laptops and computers get returned because I actually help my customers pick out computers that suit them well.
I don't own it but after reading the tests, it needs at least double or three times the battery life it currently has!
Add Quad Core option
I'd probably go ahead and make it not suck. That would be first on the list.
All kidding aside, I'm wondering if this counts as an actual Netbook under Microsoft's "THIS IS WHAT A NETBOOK IS, GUYZ" excel sheet.
Why bother commenting?
Not sure what HP is trying to do here... they already have a much better netbook - the Mini Note 100
Attacking the Dell Inspiron Mini 12.
It is an impressive kit, with the HDMI out and Full HD playback its worth considering for a media centre connected to the 32" LCD.
How would i change it?
Remove the screen, keyboard, strap it to the back of my TV and use it as a media centre!
Can't wait till they use this processor for Nettops.
Does throwing it on the floor and stomping on it count as a valid change for the better?
Owned a HP laptop for two years now and I've had three motherboard replacements, a battery failure, and two graphics card failures.
Stop covering it up with sheets!
agreed my HP laptop craped out on me too
Never buying an HP product ever again...my last one had to be replaced 4 times for motherboard related issues before I decided to accidentally drop it and get a non-HP laptop
The battery life is terrible and I was surprised at how much bigger this was than the Fujitsu "Ultra-portable" I bought a few years ago. Overall fairly happy, and it's good to have a portable laptop that has enough power and disk space to do video and development, but the battery life is even worse than the initial reviews had implied.
Also where's the Blu-Ray player. Why did I find I had to buy it with a DVD player because the much-hyped HD capabilities aren't available at launch.
dunno which works better
Shotgun or Oven?
Put one of the ULV core 2 color processors in it and get a better battery life :P Itll b amazing.
err solo* lol
Why is everyone saying this laptop/netbook is good looking? To me it looks hideous, it also seems to be out of proportion, appearing as a 4:3 screen instead of widescreen. Horrid.
I actually prefer 4:3 to 16:9 or 16:10. The problem with having small screens with wide screens shows up when your 700 pixels of vertical gets jammed up with either toolbars in your browser or when it can't show a full page doc (seeing the overall formatting) without having the letters as dots.
Mibad. I didn't notice that it was a widescreen.
Guess it's to make it seem like a older laptop, therefore noone will wanna rob you.
How about free?
get a chocolate bar free with it
it does come with an external dvd drive ^-^
I would make it cost $2 and have a 500Ghz processor and 6 petabyte solid state disk, and it would have a thumb scanner, 20 megapixel camera with 40x zoom, and a second display on the back
You win, good sir.
HP needs to hire you. Get some new blood in their outfit.
thumb scanner!?!?!
It's preposterous!! The thumb scanner would never fit.
I would like to see this implemented as well.
-Use a dual-core processor.
-Get rid of the optical drive and put a larger battery in it.
-SSD drive as standard
-Please don't put crapware in it.
-Can has real Windowz DVD?
So, I take it you've never handled or even seen one, or read a review about one, did you? Otherwise you'd know that the optical drive isn't internal...
What optical drive?
@L You're right. I was probably looking at a different model then. Scratch that optical drive complaint then. =)
I really wonder why Engadget keeps doing these "How would you change xyz" posts - all they are is a stage for trolls and flamers. Pointless.
Actually, I'd bet large sums that these posts DO make it to the PR people, product managers, etc at the respective companies. Engadget is one of the largest gadget blogs out there and probably has the largest (and most unfiltered) comment base. Obviously these big companies have people employed to research their products and consumer response to them on the internet, given the prevalence of forums and blogs. At the end of the day, they have to stay competitive by at least attempting to give consumers something they want to buy.
Unfortunately, you are right that these posts draw out a massive troll fest, but I think its worth it to have the ear of HP, or whomever, and tell them "here's what you need to improve on". The people hired to read this, can separate trolls from thoughtful comments.
Make it out of mirror as it isn't reflective enough for my tastes.