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pavilion posts

HP outs healthy slew of new Pavilion / Compaq Presario desktops

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 25th 2009 at 11:11AM

Seems that HP got all the laptop love out of its system yesterday, as today were having a foursome of new desktops shoved down our throats. First up is the Pavilion Slimline s5000, which gets going at $289 and includes an AMD LE1600 CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 320GB hard drive, 6-in-1 media card reader and a case that should be small enough for most dorm room corners. Next, there's the all-too-similar $269 Pavilion p6000, while the $599+ Pavilion Elite e9000 offers up a larger case along with an AMD Phenom II X2 545 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 500GB HDD, 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G210 CPU and a 15-in-1 card reader. Finally, the $379 Compaq Presario CQ5000 ships with a 2.5GHz Athlon X2 7550 CPU, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE GPU and a 320GB 7200RPM HDD. Tap the read link for all the nitty-gritty details, but only if you're really, really prepared for what's to come.

Gallery: HP outs healthy slew of new Pavilion / Compaq Presario desktops

New AMD Neo Athlon / Turion chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z

by Darren Murph, posted Jun 11th 2009 at 9:22AM

Well, well -- what have we here? HP's newly unveiled Pavilion dv2z just so happens to have a bit of fresh silicon within, as AMD's latest Neo chips are front and center in the configuration options. The thin-and-light machine can be ordered with single- or dual-core AMD Athlon Neo and Turion Neo dual-core processors, and if you're looking for specifics, you'll find the new 1.6GHz Athlon Neo X2 L335 and 1.6GHz Turion Neo X2 L625. Other specs on the 12.1-incher include a LED-backlit WXGA panel, optional Blu-ray drive, discrete ATI Radeon graphics, up to 500GB of HDD space, a built-in webcam, WiFi, optional WWAN (Verizon, Sprint or AT&T) and a 6-cell battery. It's up for order right now starting at $599.99, but if you're looking to leave that aged Neo MV-40 behind, you'll have to pony up a bit more than that. Full release is after the break.

Gallery: New AMD Neo chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z

Continue reading New AMD Neo Athlon / Turion chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z

70,000 HP laptop batteries recalled due to fire hazard

by Darren Murph, posted May 14th 2009 at 3:13PM

It's been quite awhile since we've seen a major recall surrounding volatile laptop batteries, but it looks as if HP is the company bringing the topic back to the forefront. Announced today, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada, in cooperation with Hewlett-Packard, has issued a voluntary recall of about 70,000 Li-ion batteries. Reportedly, these cells can "overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers," and so far, the firm and CPSC have received two separate reports of batteries that have overheated and ruptured, resulting in -- wait for it -- "flames / fire that caused minor property damage." For a look at what units are affected, head on past the break -- oh, and if you're reading this on an HP lappie right now, go ahead and grab the fire extinguisher just in case.

Continue reading 70,000 HP laptop batteries recalled due to fire hazard

HP Pavilion dv6t gets reviewed: nice for the price, but full of crapware

by Nilay Patel, posted May 1st 2009 at 7:36PM

It's not a bad time to be a budget-minded shopper on the hunt for a full-size laptop -- you've got a tons of nice options in the $600 - $1,000 range, and it sounds like HP's recently-revised dv6t is a strong competitor. PC Mag just took the 16-inch machine for a spin and came back favorably impressed, with cheers for great keyboard and included numeric keypad, light weight, and HDMI output. Sadly, a host of bundled crapware put a significant load on the 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo and the integrated graphics were expectedly lame, but for $750 after rebate, you might want to add this one to your list. Full review at the read link.

HP Pavilion dv3t hits the streets, starts at $799

by Paul Miller, posted Apr 22nd 2009 at 9:31AM

Right on the heels of Dell's mainstream Studio 15 offering, HP has the Pavilion dv3t all tidied up and ready for retail. It's a 16:9 widescreen 13.3-inch sort of number, with Core 2 Duo T6400 under the hood, a Blu-ray option and a pickable 9-cell battery which boasts up to 7 hours of battery. There's also a webcam, up to 500GB of hard drive, and two options for colors: Espresso black (pictured after the break) and Moonlight white (above). Prices start at $799, but there's plenty of room to grow.

Continue reading HP Pavilion dv3t hits the streets, starts at $799

HP Pavilion dv6, HDX 16 and more see updates, rumors

by Donald Melanson, posted Apr 8th 2009 at 1:16PM

In the market for an HP laptop? Then it looks like your buying decision just got a tad tougher, with another round of official and not quite official announcements affecting four more models among the company's many offerings. Those include the dv6 (pictured above), which is now available with lower-cost Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 or Core 2 Duo T6400 processors and ATI Mobility Radeon HD4530 or HD4650 graphics, and the considerably higher-end HDX 16, which gets a boost in the graphics department courtesy of NVIDIA's GeForce GT 130M GPU with 1GB of on-board RAM. What's more, while HP isn't saying anything about it just yet, Notebook Italia seems pretty sure that the 18.4-inch HDX 18 will also be getting a similar graphics upgrade in the coming days. Lastly, it seems that the 17-inch Pavilion dv7 laptop has also seen a mild update in the form of the dv7-2000, which now packs ATI's latest Mobility Radeon HD4000 series graphics, and a Core 2 Quad Q9000 processor on the top-end configuration.

Read - Notebook Italia, HP Pavilion dv6, HDX 16, HDX 18
Read - Notebook Italia, HP Pavilion dv7

HP Pavilion dv2 review roundup

by Ross Miller, posted Apr 8th 2009 at 2:58AM

We figure the design just to the left of the touchpad is more than enough to convince you to impulse-buy the $750 HP Pavilion dv2, but just in case you hesitated, the reviews are in and it's not all sunshine for the AMD Neo-powered non-netbook. Laptop Magazine notes it handles HD video pretty well, but it suffers from a cramped keyboard, above average heat, and a less than stellar battery life. Instead, they suggest a Samsung NC20 as a ligher, cheaper alternative. CNET said it got beat performance-wise by Intel Core 2 Duo laptops of comparable price range, and although it bested Atom in most tests, the two processors tied when multitasking. As for PC World, like Laptop, they did give kudos for better graphics performance, but added the caveat that the NC20 and upcoming MSI X-Slim X320 would give it a run for its money. For all the nitty-gritty details, browse through the reviews below.

Read - Laptop Magazine
Read - PC Magazine
Read - CNET

HP's debuts new Pavilion Elite m9600 series desktops, range of widescreen monitors

by Paul Miller, posted Mar 25th 2009 at 9:20AM

For middle-of-the-high-road types, HP just debuted its new Pavilion Elite m9600 series of Core i7 excitement. Things don't get quite as wild as Dell's new 24GB monsters, but HP packs in a respectable amount of power for the price. The base configuration includes a Core i7 920 2.66Ghz processor, 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GS graphics and a DVD burner, all for $950, and you can escalate up to a Core i7 940 2.93GHz processor, 12GB of RAM, a couple of 1TB hard drives, 1GB ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics and a Blu-ray burner. HP is also outing four new 16:9 monitors, the 18.5-inch w1858, 20-inch 2009m, 21.5-inch 2159m and 23-inch w2338h. The latter two include HDMI inputs, and the prices range from $170 to $300 -- not bad at all.

HP silently upgrades Pavilion dv4t, actually makes it tempting

by Darren Murph, posted Mar 20th 2009 at 7:28AM

Shh... don't make too much racket while tweaking the website, else prospective buyers might actually notice that we're upgrading machines! Color us confused, but we can't figure out for the life of us why HP has taken that tactic of late. Within the past few weeks, we've seen not one, not two, but three of its Pavilion laptops get updated with nary a peep from HP itself. This go 'round, the dv4t is getting fitted with a LED-backlit display, Espresso Black and Moonlight White color options, integrated WWAN (Verizon or AT&T), a 500GB HDD and optional NVIDIA GeForce G 105M (512MB) graphics. There's also a Blu-ray option, integrated HDTV tuner and a 12-cell battery to choose from, but we'd only spring for those if money ain't a thang.

[Thanks, Cezar]

HP Pavilion dv6t laptop gets a quiet upgrade, new paint job

by Donald Melanson, posted Mar 14th 2009 at 2:44PM

HP just dished out a quiet upgrade to its dv7t gaming laptop last month, and it now looks like it's done the same with its slightly more modest Pavilion dv6t, which gets some sprucing up inside and out. That includes your choice of 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4530 or 1GB HD 4650 graphics, which have edged out the previous NVIDIA options, although the rest of the specs seem to have remained largely untouched, including the usual range of Core 2 Duo processors, up to 8GB of RAM, a max 500GB hard drive, and an unfortunately lackluster 1366 x 768 resolution on that 16-inch display. You can also now get the laptop in your choice of Espresso Black or Moonlight White color schemes, although there seems to be a $25 premium over the $679.99 base price for the latter option (pictured above).

[Thanks, Plasma]

HP quietly updates Pavilion dv7t gaming laptop

by Darren Murph, posted Feb 26th 2009 at 9:01AM

While HP's dv7t provides a much more subtle way to game on-the-go compared to say, the HDX crew, we don't see the necessity in keeping these updates all hush-hush. For whatever reason, it seems that said laptop has been updated overnight from 17- to 17.3-inches (we're talking LCD size, by the way), and the NVIDIA graphics option has been replaced with a pair of ATI selections: the 512MB Mobility Radeon HD 4530 and 1GB HD 4650. The newfangled 17.3-inch panel sports a somewhat deflating 1,600 x 900 native resolution, though there is good news to be shared. The previous $1,229 starting point has dropped to a decidedly more manageable $799.99, though it'll cost you extra to equip this beast with the 2GHz Core 2 Quad CPU that it really deserves.

[Thanks, Johnny and Coal]

HP greets us with 13.3-inch Pavilion dv3 entertainment laptop

by Darren Murph, posted Jan 6th 2009 at 12:55AM

While you and HP can argue the rest of the night away about the most accurate moniker for its Pavilion dv2, the dv3 is definitely an ultraportable. The AMD-powered machine comes in a plethora of configurations with CPUs ranging from 2GHz (Athlon X2 QL-62) to 2.4GHz (Turion X2 Ultra ZM-86), ATI's Radeon HD 3200 graphics, up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM, 160/250/320/400GB hard drive choices, WiFi / Bluetooth, a dual-layer DVD burner, gigabit Ethernet, an ExpressCard slot and a satisfactory array of ports including three USB 2.0 sockets, VGA, HDMI, eSATA combo (with a third USB port) and audio in / out. Users can select from a six or nine-cell battery, and there's even an optional fingerprint reader if you're unashamedly paranoid. Interested? It's available today, junior, for $799 and up.

Gallery: HP greets us with 13.3-inch Pavilion dv3 entertainment laptop

HP's 12.1-inch Pavilion dv2 with Blu-ray -- don't call it a netbook

by Thomas Ricker, posted Jan 6th 2009 at 12:02AM

Here we've got the fruits of AMD's new Neo platform: the Pavilion dv2 series of entertainment laptops. Starting at 3.8-pounds with a keyboard 8% short of full-sized, this 12.1-inch (1,280 x 800 pixels) ultra-portable features a 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 processor, up to 4GB of memory and 500GB of disk, optional 802.11n WiFi, and WWAN (Gobi) support. Now what if we told you that this 64-bit Vista Home Premium laptop (no need for the XP fallback here kids) measures less than an inch thick and can be configured with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 discrete graphics and an external Blu-ray player for $899 when it ships in March? More you say? Ok, there's also Bluetooth, HDMI-out, an integrated webcam, and 3.5 to 4-hours of battery with prices set to start at $699. Isn't CES wonderful?

Gallery: HP's 12.1-inch Pavilion dv2 -- don't call it a netbook

New HP laptop releases rumored, Mini 1000 Mi included

by Darren Murph, posted Jan 3rd 2009 at 7:19PM

With CES just around the corner, it's no surprise to hear whispers of a new lot of laptops from HP (or anyone else, for that matter). A smattering of from reports around the web have it that Hewlett-Packard is looking to debut a few new machines here in the near future, starting with the AMD-powered 13.3-inch Pavilion dv3z ($799.99), the 16-inch dv6t entertainment notebook ($679.99) and the 17-inch Pavilion G70 ($799.99). We're also clued in on a Compaq Presario CQ60, which will tout a 15.4-inch panel, AMD CPU and not much else considering the $469.99 price tag. Finally, it looks as if the company could introduce a new "Mi" (for Mobile Internet, duh) Mini 1000 edition, which could ship as early as next week with a Linux-based OS and a $379.99 starting tag. Check the links below for all the details, and keep it locked right here for any updates from HP.

Read - HP Pavilion dv3z
Read - HP Pavilion dv6t
Read - HP Pavilion G70
Read - HP Mini 1000 Mi
Read - Compaq Presario CQ60

HP TouchSmart tx2z reviewed: multitouch could use some work

by Darren Murph, posted Dec 21st 2008 at 4:12AM

HP was pretty jazzed about delivering the first multitouch "consumer" convertible tablet, but in Laptop Mag's point of view, that highly touted feature could use a bit of TLC. In fact, critics were pretty hard on the machine overall due to the multitouch not being "fast or responsive enough," but considering the $300 premium, we can't say such criticism is unjustified. Performance wise, everything was on par, and battery life was found to be respectable enough; at the end of the day, though, it only managed to score three out of five stars and couldn't elicit the type of praise that makes you want to run out and pick one up on the double. However, if HP manages to improve the touch experience, we could be looking at a winner in the tablet world.