Opinions?!?!?!: HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition
Hey guys, I'm looking to take a new laptop back to college with me this year and this is the one I got, an HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook. I did a bit of background checking and ordered it this morning but am just now finding Icrontic and am seeing that you are all absolute geniuses so if you got some pros and cons or advice LAY IT ON ME haha. I am just concerned that I may have rushed my order and did not research enough to find the perfect laptop for me. I am mainly going to be using it for college work, music, pictures, movies, and Office documents (ALL types not just Word). Although I am not a pc gamer, I may consider it (although def not a main focus right now). I have a 3 week return policy on it so if you guys recommend something better for around the same price range I'll try sending it back when it arrives (scheduled July 2nd). Here are the specs and I'm also bolding some of the key features I bought it for...if you guys could share your opinions/recommendations on those I'd more than appreciate it:
HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC:
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM)i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 630M Graphics with 1GB GDDR3 memory [HDMI, VGA]
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
• Microsoft(R) Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word/Excel(R) only, No PowerPoint(R)/Outlook(R)
• No additional security software
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery - Up to 6.0 hours of battery life +++
• 15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1366x768)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN
• Standard Keyboard
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
Estimated ship date: July 2, 2012
This product is covered by the standard HP warranty
Support for this product is provided by HP Customer Care
The HP Home & Home Office Store will accept returns or exchanges for this product up to 21 days after delivery
I'm paying a total of about $870 ($799.99 after the -$400 off coupon I found online beforehand plus about $70 tax)
PS- I am a bit new to the modern era of laptops and am absolutely fascinated by all of the discussions each and every one of you carry out so the more you can tell me, the more I can aspire to be like you GENIUSES
. Some of the things I'm not too familiar with (which I also italicized and underlined above) are: Processors (nd GHz), Graphics cards (specific types/ i.e. pros and cons of the one I'm getting GeForce 630M), and secondary mSSD Acceleration Caches like one I installed. I know this is a lot and time consuming so whatever you guys can help me get a firmer grounding of will help me tremendously. Thx again guys!
HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC:
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM)i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
• NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 630M Graphics with 1GB GDDR3 memory [HDMI, VGA]
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 32GB mSSD Hard Drive Acceleration Cache
• Microsoft(R) Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word/Excel(R) only, No PowerPoint(R)/Outlook(R)
• No additional security software
• 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery - Up to 6.0 hours of battery life +++
• 15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1366x768)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN
• Standard Keyboard
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
Estimated ship date: July 2, 2012
This product is covered by the standard HP warranty
Support for this product is provided by HP Customer Care
The HP Home & Home Office Store will accept returns or exchanges for this product up to 21 days after delivery
I'm paying a total of about $870 ($799.99 after the -$400 off coupon I found online beforehand plus about $70 tax)
PS- I am a bit new to the modern era of laptops and am absolutely fascinated by all of the discussions each and every one of you carry out so the more you can tell me, the more I can aspire to be like you GENIUSES
. Some of the things I'm not too familiar with (which I also italicized and underlined above) are: Processors (nd GHz), Graphics cards (specific types/ i.e. pros and cons of the one I'm getting GeForce 630M), and secondary mSSD Acceleration Caches like one I installed. I know this is a lot and time consuming so whatever you guys can help me get a firmer grounding of will help me tremendously. Thx again guys! 0
Comments
GPUs (graphics processing units) - There is nVidia (GeForce) and AMD (Formerly ATI. They make Radeons). I had a GeForce for several years and it did what it needed to do, wasn't exactly great but it has longevity. I recently switched to AMD but that's mainly because my motherboard only supports SLI and I have an AMD cpu. Basically, all you need to know is that if you're going to ever run dual graphics card stick to one brand or another. They can't Crossfire/SLI between brands.
Storage - In the storage world there is HDD (hard drive disks) and SSDs (solid state drives). HDDs are storage media that have moving parts and are thus rated in rotations per minute, they're cheap and hold a lot of data but are prone to breaking over a long period of time. One way they can break is where the rotations get off balance, end up slicing the actual disk and ruining the drive. SSDs on the other hand are absolutely awesome. They have no moving parts, you never need to defragment the drive (since the drive doesn't move you don't and ABSOLUTELY SHOULDN'T use a program that sorts the files in order for easy access, defragmentation), they're insane fast (again, due to no moving parts) but are expensive and have lower storage capacity. A 64gig SSD will cost about 100$ as compared to a 1 terra HDD will cost ~$60.
One final note, you essentially bought a gaming laptop. This system would be in the same league as my desktop. If you don't plan on gaming or watching 1080p movies then you're essentially not going to be use the system to its fullest extent. It's not exactly a bad thing since computers get old fast, especially laptops. It may be on the higher end now but in the next year it definitely won't be.
Hope that helped a bit. If you have anymore questions you're welcome to ask them here or through a PM. Welcome to Icrontic!
OP: The only aspect of that laptop that seems a little weak is the GPU...it'll be fine for occasional gaming but, overall, the laptop looks quite good for the price. Also, I'm not thrilled with these 1366x768 LCDs that companies are using (a bit much screen door for me) but, again, the laptop seems good for the price, the resolution shouldn't be an issue unless you really need a lot of workspace, and it'll be a little easier on the GPU.
Unrelated: I just ordered a 15", i7 quad, 1080p, GTX 660M equipped Lenovo for about $960. I'll probably put together some sort of evaluation within the next few weeks (mostly as an exercise for myself).