HP PAVILION DV6000 SERIES

Hewlett Packard isone of the most prominent manufacturers of notebook computers today, and any trip to Best Buy will make that abundantly clear. Well, as of this writing, one of the notebook PCs they have on sale right now at Best Buy is the HP Pavilion DV6000. I picked one up a couple months ago for $800. I was in Best Buy a couple weeks ago and it was on sale for $749. So, this is certainly an affordable notebook PC. So, how does it perform in everyday use? Let's check it out.

First, The Specs

In my eyes, the DV6000 is proof that PCs are affordable as hell today. These specs compare quite favorably to my desktop, all in a sub $800 notebook.

• AMD Turion 64, dual core processor
• 2 GB DDR2 memory
• 15.4″ WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
• 256MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7200
• 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
• LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
• 1.3 Megapixel Webcam with mic built into screen
• Altec Lansing speakers built in
• 3 USB ports, ExpressCard/54 Slot, Video Out, Integrated Consumer IR, 1 RJ-11, 1 RJ-45
• Windows Vista Home Premium

Now, when you look at this unit on HP's website, you will see there are different spec configurations for this model. The above happens to be what I have in the unit I am typing this review on.

Use in the Real World

Now, I am not and never have been a big benchmark guy. If you are into computer reviews that load you up with benchmark specs, go to another site. What I am interested in is real world use. I bought this notebook to get work done, not win any contests. So, how does it perform in that regard?

One of the things that sold me on this laptop was the screen. The screen is gorgeous. It is wonderfully bright and clear, and provides a respectable 1280×800 resolution in a widescreen format. Yes, there certainly are notebooks with higher resolution. It really comes down to preference. While other units may give you higher resolution, some may find it hard to read on small screens. For me, I thought 1280×800 was a good resolution to use for a 15.4″ screen. My only complaint with the screen is that the glare is really bad when trying to use the unit outside. It gets so bad that it's more like looking in a mirror than into a computer screen. Inside, however, the screen is beautiful.

The fact that this unit uses AMD rather than Intel means that it generates more heat. Intel processors just seem to run cooler in notebook computers. All benchmarks aside (because I don't care), the performance of this notebook is quite good. It actually opens many apps much faster than my desktop PC, which is using an Intel Pentium Core Duo. So, I have no complaints about speed, however, yes, it does generate some heat.

The built-in Altec Lansing speakers will certainly not compare to the larger speakers you would plug in externally, but they do generate a nice sound for the size. For multimedia use, the speakers will get the job done.

The DV6000 comes with a thin, little remote control for use in controlling HP's multimedia player. HP is using a proprietary multimedia player for playing DVDs called QuickPlay. It ties in with the remote control as well as the QuickPlay buttons on top of the notebook. The player is decent, but many times I found myself simply wanting to use Windows Media Player rather than the QuickPlay popping up full screen. Also, the fact that it is tied into the QuickPlay buttons can be a little annoying at times. Several times I have rested my fingers on the top of the notebook and accidently pressed the DVD button and launched Quickplay. No matter what I'm doing, that interrupts the workflow badly.

For digital photography, I find the built-in card reader really convenient. Since my Canon camera uses SD cards, I can just pull the card out and plug it directly into the notebook to pull images onto the computer. This means I don't have to track down the USB cable that came with the camera. Nice and easy.

But, It Uses Vista

Like almost every PC on the market today, this unit comes with Windows Vista. Now, on my desktop, I can rattle off a bunch of annoyances with Windows Vista. Many of us that follow technology all the time have many complaints about Vista, and I still stand by the fact that Vista was NOT ready for market upon it's release. But, judging by the DV6000, Vista does seem to run better on completely proprietary machines. I do have occasional annoyances with Vista on the DV6000.. For example, sometimes it will lose it's screen resolution settings when coming out of sleep mode. This is an issue with Vista and will be fixed. Other than that, though, Vista runs significantly better on this notebook machine than it does on my desktop. No complaints, really.

Like all pre-built computers, it comes with some pre-installed software. It comes with a 60-day trial installation of Office 2007. Since I don't care to fork out several hundred dollars just for a ribbon interface, I opted to install OpenOffice, which gets me 95% there for free. The DV6000 comes with some other pre-installed crap, much of it I ended up removing from the computer.

HP Pavilion dv7

HP's premium-priced Envy range may be catching all the headlines, but now its Pavilion range of affordable consumer laptops has gone under the knife. With an all-new design and some trickle-down technology from its luxurious stablemates, HP's Pavilion dv7 just might be the affordable powerhouse we've been waiting for.

The Pavilion dv7 is entirely unrecognisable from its predecessors. Gone is the ostentatious glossy silver of previous models, replaced by an altogether more understated, stylish finish. That's no bad thing, as the Pavilion now looks a little like a cut-price Envy 17. It has a smoothly contoured chassis, and little touches such as the subtle, textured finish on the lid and wristrest make all the difference.

The hefty 3.05kg chassis doesn't just look good; that slick appearance goes hand in hand with fine build quality. The base is flex-free, with a wide and solid wristrest to lean on, and the lid does a great job of protecting the display within. No matter how hard we prodded and poked it, the lid stayed firm, with no sign of any showthrough on the display itself.

All the physical changes have been accompanied by tweaks under the hood. This, the range-topping dv7, now includes the Beats Audio technology, which made its debut in the Envy range. The multiple speakers dotted around the HP's chassis reach the sort of volumes required to make games and movie soundtracks enjoyable, and there's enough clarity that listening to music's a pleasure rather than the usual tinny chore. They might not have the Bang & Olufsen accreditation of the fancy-pants Asus N53JN, but they're certainly no poorer for it.

The HP's aural finery is accompanied by an equally good display. The glossy 17.3in panel may make do with a native resolution of just 1,600 x 900 pixels – it seems a waste not to have a Full HD screen on a Blu-ray-equipped laptop such as this – but the quality is very good. Colours are rich, and even tricky skintones are handled well. There's plenty of brightness on tap too.

You certainly couldn't describe the hp Pavilion dv7 as slow, either. As with several of the desktop replacements we've seen recently, HP has employed one of Intel's older quad-core Core i7 processors: the 1.6GHz Core i7-720QM. While not up with the latest Core i5 and Core i7 models, it's a choice that gives the HP a respectable 1.49 in our application-based benchmarks and means it's fast enough even for a touch of HD video editing.

The quad-core processor is accompanied by an ATI Radeon HD5650 graphics card, so there's enough power to cope with modern games as well. Faced with our Crysis benchmark at 1,600 x 900 and Medium quality, the HP managed a very respectable average of 34fps.

It's once you turn your attention to less exciting pastimes that the HP flounders a little. This is no fault of the keyboard, though. Its scrabble-tile keys each have a nice crisp feel, and apart from the cramped cursor keys, the layout is pretty much spot on.

Unfortunately, the Pavilion dv7 has inherited its touchpad from the Envy range, and it's not entirely trouble-free. The big problem is that the buttons are integrated into the surface of the touchpad. Drag the cursor with a finger, and when you apply your thumb to either of the stiff buttons you'll often find the cursor hopping left or right in response. Sometimes, inexplicably, it behaves itself, but at its worst it's maddening.

A further annoyance comes from the cooling fans. With that powerful specification just begging you to tax it with gaming and heavy multitasking, it won't be long before the HP's noisy fans whirr into action. The speakers go loud enough to drown them out, but in quiet moments you'll be in no doubt that the HP is working hard to stay cool. Battery life isn't that impressive, with a result of just 3hrs 23mins in our light-usage test, but that isn't altogether surprising given the power on tap and the size of the screen.

So it isn't perfect, and there's some hot competition around too: Samsung's R780 is faster, and the Sony VAIO F-Series is more customisable. When it comes to all-round entertainment, however, the HP Pavilion dv7 has it all: great speakers, a good display and enough power to make the most of them. The trackpad is an annoyance and also enough to deny the dv7 a recommendation, but we'd be willing to cut HP's Pavilion dv7 a little slack.

ACER TravelMAte 2300

The Acer TravelMate 2300 certainly doesn't look like a $699 laptop. This sleek system is decked out in a metallic silver-colored shell that tapers slightly at the edges to give it a refined look. Just as important is what's inside the attractive case, including a sharp, widescreen display, 802.11g Wi-Fi, and a DVD/CD-RW drive. While this Acer is far from being a barnburner, it delivers a surprising amount of bang for your buck.

When you open the lid, you'll find a 15.4-inch LCD that offers the WXGA resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. That works out to an aspect ratio of 16:10, perfect for DVD movies. Better yet, this screen displays some of the sharpest images we've seen on a budget laptop. The panel is also quite bright, making it a tremendous find in such an affordably priced laptop.

There are sacrifices to be made in order to hit a sub-$700 price tag. While we love the Pentium M, which offers great performance at clock speeds under 2 GHz, we can't say the same for its little brother, the Celeron M. This CPU runs at slower clock speeds than the Pentium M, features just half the on-chip cache memory, and eliminates some power-saving features. With a 1.5-GHz Celeron M 340 processor, a 4,200-rpm hard drive, and just 256MB of RAM, the TravelMate 2300 handles most applications fine, but doesn't exactly plow through them.

The system stalled a bit when we tried to run two or more relatively advanced applications, like Photoshop and Excel, at the same time. Programs are slow to load, and performing tasks like photo editing can be fairly time consuming. For more basic tasks like word processing and Web browsing the TravelMate 2300 performed perfectly well.

The PCMark04 productivity benchmark reported a score of 2501, which is low but not heinous. This score is actually about 10 percent higher than what the two 1.4-GHz Celeron M-based laptops in this roundup were able to achieve.

The 2300 is definitely not for gaming. With the video adapter integrated into the Intel 855GB core logic chipset, the motion of gameplay in Far Cry was choppy even at the lowest detail setting. The 3DMark2001 benchmark backed up our experience, registering a mark of just 2249.

The system's width might already preclude it from use as a frequent traveling companion, but its limited battery runtime confirms that. We were able to play our Shrek 2 DVD for just 1 hour 22 minutes before the TravelMate 2300's battery gave up the ghost.

This short battery runtime was especially disappointing since the movie played flawlessly on the 2300, with smooth motion and crisp detail thanks to the system's sharp widescreen display. The integrated front-panel stereo speakers are also rather good, yielding sound that's fuller than what you'll get from the typical laptop

Although the TravelMate 2300 doesn't offer a DVD burner, we weren't expecting one in a system priced at just $699. For that price, we were glad to see a combination DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, which can burn CD-Rs at a speedy 24X.

We were also glad to find three USB 2.0 ports on the system, with two of them placed on the right side and one placed right up front beside the headphone, microphone, and line-in audio jacks. Unfortunately, the system doesn't offer a FireWire port to connect a digital camcorder.

The system's wide chassis allows for a particularly comfortable keyboard that angles the keys outward. Meanwhile, the touchpad has a smooth, responsive surface that has the same length-width ratio as the screen. A four-way directional rocker switch placed between the touchpad's buttons allows you to scroll up, down, and from side to side.

Another perk you might not expect at this price is an internal 802.11b/g connection, which means you'll be able to get on the Web wirelessly without springing for a PC Card or USB adapter.

ACER ASPIRE 3000

Starting at less than $600, the Acer Aspire 3000 is one of the least expensive laptops on the market. Though it has an unremarkable design, the Aspire 3000 features a big 15-inch standard-aspect display and weighs right around six pounds--too heavy for regular travel but fairly lightweight for a laptop of this size and price. That said, the Aspire 3000's measly specs aren't going to set any records, and this machine delivers absolutely terrible battery life; furthermore, it lacks some basic ports and connections. If you're looking for a laptop that's portable enough to move around the house for lightweight computing tasks--e-mail, Web surfing, and word processing--the Aspire 3000 may fit the bill. Still, we recommend that you consider shelling out a few hundred more for one of the stronger systems we profiled in our $1,000 roundup a few months back.

The acer Aspire 3000 sits right on the edge between thin-and-light and midsize. It weighs 6 pounds and measures 14.3 inches wide, 11 inches deep, and 1.5 inches thick, so it's a bit bulky for regular travel. It's a smidge larger than two other inexpensive laptops--the 6-pound Acer TravelMate 2350 and the 5.7-pound Toshiba Satellite L25. The Aspire 3000's AC adapter weighs 0.8 pound, which is about average for an adapter on a laptop in this category.

Designwise, the Aspire 3003LCi is a dead ringer for the Acer TravelMate 4060 save for its keyboard: the TravelMate's is curved and the Aspire's is rectangular, and we like both just fine. The Aspire 3000 features a nice wide touch pad, two big mouse buttons, and a convenient rocker button for scrolling through documents or Web pages. It doesn't incorporate multimedia controls or external volume buttons, though it has four programmable application buttons and a Wi-Fi on/off button. The system's 15-inch display has a standard 1,024x768 native resolution and is plenty clear and bright, but it doesn't have the wide-screen dimensions you find on more and more laptop displays. The two speakers deliver mediocre sound. For a better multimedia experience, check out the Dell XPS M140, which starts at $999.

The Aspire 3000's limited group of ports, jacks, and connections reflects its rock-bottom price. It offers one VGA port, one Type II PC Card slot, 56Kbps modem and Ethernet jacks, three USB 2.0 ports, and three audio jacks (headphone, microphone, and line-in). Also onboard is a cost-cutting DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. Absent from this group are common connections such as FireWire and S-Video as well as a flash-media card reader--a key feature for digital-photo enthusiasts.

Microsoft Windows XP Home comes preloaded on the Aspire 3000, though other configurations in the Aspire 3000 series ship with Windows XP Professional. Acer bundles very little software with the system. For viewing and burning discs, Acer includes CyberLink PowerProducer and NTI CD and DVD Maker; it also provides its own utility for managing core system settings, such as passwords. Starting at $989, the Sony VAIO FS series provides a more palatable software package.

Our test unit, the Aspire 3003LCi, features decidedly bargain-bin components: a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron 3000+ processor, a meager 256MB of slow 333MHz RAM, a puny 40GB hard drive running at a sluggish 4,200rpm, and a low-end SiSM760GX graphics chip that steals up to 64MB of main system memory. Both the comparably priced Acer TravelMate 2355LCi and the Toshiba Satellite L25 offer Celeron processors and larger hard drives, and the TravelMate includes twice as much RAM. Many other laptops offer considerably better specs for a few hundred dollars more; check out our roundup of $1,000 laptops and our list of top low-priced laptops for some picks.

We couldn't measure the Aspire 3003LCi's mobile performance precisely, because the system's battery couldn't last the 90 minutes it takes to complete CNET Labs' mobile benchmarks. It consistently cut out after about 70 minutes, which is nearly two hours less than average. Battery life aside, the Aspire 3003LCi displayed enough power in our SysMark performance tests to handle basic productivity tasks such as e-mail, Web surfing, and word processing; it performed on a par with other low-priced systems, including the Gateway NX500X (a.k.a the M360) and the Acer Aspire 5000.

Acer backs the Aspire 3000 with a one-year warranty, which is standard for consumer laptops. Acer's tech-support phone lines are open only Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on weekends from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. CT. The company's online support could stand some sprucing up; it currently lacks helpful features such as forums and real-time chat with a tech-support rep.

ASUS A6000

The A6KT is touted by Asus as a mainstream portable entertainment laptop. What first struck me looking at this laptop was its sweet price to performance ratio. Hovering at just under $1,100 this laptop is a great starting point if you're looking for something to enjoy not only office work and movies, but even gaming, be it casual or more frequent.

Tehnically, the ASUS A6000 is part of the Asus' business series. However, everything about this particular notebook, starting from its design and configuration and ending with the way it's presented, seems to indicate it would better be situated in either the Multimedia or the Personal Entertainment Center series.

ASUS A6KT Q086 specs as reviewed:

• Processor: AMD Turion MT-34 (1,8 Ghz/1MB L2 Cache)
• Hard Drive: 80 GB PATA 4200RPM
• Screen: 15.4" WXGA Color shine glossy Widescreen with native 1280 x 800
• Graphics: Ati Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128 MB Dedicated + 384 MB Shared
• RAM: 1GB DDR400 (2x512 MB)
• Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW SuperMulti Double Layer
• Battery: 8-cell lithium-ion
• Wireless: 10/100/1000 LAN 802.11 b/g
• Weight: 2.85 kg (5,8 lbs.)
• Ports and Slots:
  • 1 x PCMCIA (Type II) – right side
  • 1 x Microphone – right side
  • 1 x RJ-11 Modem – right side
  • 1 x S-Video TV-out – right side
  • 1 x Headphones – right side
  • 1 x RJ-45 LAN – right side
  • 4 x USB 2.0 – back
  • 1,3 Megapixels built-in webcam
  • 5-in-1 Universal card reader – right side
• Dimensions: 35,4 cm (14,12") (W) – 28.4 cm (11.4") (D) x 2,52 cm-3,52 (1"-1,4") (H) 
• Security : Kensington lock

Above are the basic specs for this notebook, though it must be said that Asus does equip their A6KT laptops according to the region they ship it in. That's why some can find this notebook sporting a faster  and bigger 5400 rpm HDD or get a version without the handy 1,3MP webcam.  The suffix differentiates the configs of this notebook (Q086 could be Q056 or Q001 etc.)

First Impressions

I have to say right off the bat that I didn't expect any miracles for this kind of money. And I didn't get any. What I did get was a well built, stylish notebook with a good configuration and decent battery time. More on that later.

Build and Design

You can usually get a pretty good impresion of a laptop's build quality when you first touch it. If it doesn't crackle under its own weight (like when held from one side) or if doesn't just feels flimsy, chances are the build quality is decent. The first thing I checked was the quality of the plastics, which turned out to be pretty good. They're rigid and there's no noticeable wobble in areas where the plastic covers gaps inside the notebook, which are prone to more stress when handling the notebook. Also, the palm rests, at each side of the touchpad are firm enough to sustain even a heavy hand such as mine without bending a milimeter.

The LCD hinges are firm and hold the pannel in place no matter how much it's shaken. A nice touch is the frame surrounding the touchpad inlcuding the buttons, which are all made out of aluminium with a slight striation along their surface. This is a smart choice as sweat from the fingers will reduce the aging of these buttons. On the other hand, the notebook's LCD cover is made of plastic and this is probably the first thing that will get scratched and show signs of wear. Besides these aspects, the laptop is solidly built and should bare every day use and exploitation just fine.

The design is pretty sleek in my opinion and I think it's a pretty notebook without being too sober. It all comes down to each one's taste on this matter, but I think the A6KT is a stylish laptop.

Screen

The notebok has a glare type LCD, dubbed by Asus as "Color shine". Let's sart with the brightness which I  found to be impressive. It has 15 different settings of illumination and office work is perfectly enjoyable even at 6% brightness. Personally, when gaming, I found a setting of around 25% is just enough for a nice experience and hasn't seemed to bother other people either. The LCD continues to remain bright, even when sitting side by side with a 19 inch Samsung 940B TFT which has impressive contrast and shine.

Unfortunately, there is a downside to this nice LCD panel, and here I'm refering to the maximum viewing angles.  There are no numbers specified by Asus on the website nor in the manual. As far as I can work out, the horizontal viewing angles are around 140 degrees which is uncommon for a modern LCD.  Movies are viewable as long as the group huddles togheter to fit inside that 140-degree range, otherwise depending on how far outside this zone they are it can become difficult to view or even impossible.

Battery Life

There isn't much to say here. The battery is an 8-cell Li-Ion acumulator. The first few charges, the battery didn't last much more than 2 hours and 5-10 minutes. A battery calibration did make a significant change, now having a total lifetime of 2h 30-45 minutes depending on how the notebook is used. The maximum I've achieved was 2h 45' when typing and having no other programs or unnecessary processes running. Screen brightness was set to 6% which allowed me to work confortably even in a day-lit room.

Heat and Noise

The laptop is very quiet when running on the battery and when used for light tasks. It can go as long as 15-20 minutes without starting the fan and when that does happen it is very quiet and doesn't disturb. However,when set to High Performance, Super Performance or Game and when running a resource heavy application, such as a game, it will rev up pretty high and become annoying after a while. The DVD drive is fairly noisy as well, but it revs down as soon as it is not needed. If operation of an application does require continuous seek of the DVD that can get annoying after some time. The HDD on the other hand is quiet.

Heat is not an issue so far. The hard drive does become hot, around 51 degrees when operating for some time, which makes the upper right side of the keyboard hotter than the one just above the CPU. The laptop can become quite hot (around 45 degrees) in specific points on it's underside, but I can't see it becoming a real issue unless it is used on a hot summer's day and held on the lap the entire session.

Graphics

The Radeon Mobility X1600 is currently consdered as being part of ATi's performance segment, and should be enough for anyone who plans on using this laptop for everything less than a full time gaming system. The card can run anything you can currently throw at it including games that require Shader Model 3.0 as a minimum, because the RV530 mobility is a fully compliant DX 9.0c graphics card.

 

Notebook	3D Mark 05 Results
ASUS A6KT Q086 (1,8GHz Turion64 MT-34, ATI X1600 128MB)	3,274 3D Marks
Dell Inspiron e1705 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	1,791 3D Marks
Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1600 256MB)	4,236 3DMarks
Alienware Aurora M-7700(AMD Dual Core FX-60, ATI X1600 256MB)	7,078 3D Marks
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,092 3D Marks
Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI x700 128 MB)	2,530 3D Marks
Fujitsu n6410 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB)	2,273 3DMarks
HP Pavilion dv4000 (1.86 GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB)	2,536 3D Marks
Dell XPS M1210 (2.16 GHz Core Duo, nVidia Go 7400 256MB)	2,090 3D Marks

It is clocked at 450Mhz core /900Mhz memory when running in 3D mode and equipped with 128MB RAM though it can share through ATi's Hypermemory tehnology another 384 MB of memory out of the systems total RAM, to a total of a 512MB VRAM. Even when set in the Low Battery mode, running at only 135Mhz core clock, it should run the upcoming Vista's Aero without a hitch and save battery at the same time. Every game that I've tested thus far is fluid at the native resolution with at least medium-high settings applied. A real bang for the buck choice! It has to be mentioned that the card has an S-Video TV-out and an D-SUB connector, but no DVI sadly.

Processor

The Turion64 is AMD's reply to Intel's Centrino chips. The Turion64 can only be compared in terms of performance to the Core Solo. Even though some may not consider it as fast as the former, it generally gets ahead of the Solo depending on the application it's running and should see a significant performance boost over its rival once Vista 64 rolls out and drivers and applications that take advantage of the 64-bit feature will come around. The MT-34 that comes equipped in this notebook is built on the 90nm fab process and is packaged in AMD's Socket 754. The 1 MB L2 cache that comes with this processor is quite helpful and so the CPU does manage to gain, clock for clock, a considerable lead ahead of its desktop counterpart, the last generation 939-pin Athlon64 single core chips. The "T" in the MT-34 tag stands for lower power consumption, AMD sports a 25W THD (total heat dissipation) for this chip.

Notebook	Time to calculate PI to digit number 2 million
Asus A6KT Q086 (1,8GHz Turion64 MT-34)	1m 52s
Acer 5102WLMi(1.6GHz Turion64 X2 TL-50	2m 22s
HP dv6000z (1.8GHz Turion64 X2 TL-56)	1m 54s
Dell Inspiron 6400 (1.83GHz Core Duo)	1m 22s
Toshiba A100(2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Dell XPS M140 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 41s
HP dv2000z (1.6GHz Turion64 X2)	1m 59s
Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Pentium M)	1m 48s
Toshiba Satellite A100 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Sony VAIO SZ2 (2.16GHz Core Duo)	1m 14s

Super Pi results 

Even when set to "Battery saving" and running at around 25% of total power, the CPU keeps the system responsive and manages not to feel slugish.  When fully reved up, at 1,8 Ghz, everything is fast starting from the SO and ending with power hungry applications, like games, some of which can even be comfortably run with the CPU at 50% status (800Mhz) without noticeable slowdowns. Some more recent games (2006+) however have to be run in one of the 3 power managament schemes that Asus provides (High Performance, Super Performance or Game) otherwise they tend to run in slow motion or just feel awkward.

HDTune shows the hard drive to have poor numbers, it only spins at 4200RPM 

The hard drive is the major let down for the A6KT. This version of the notebook came with only a 4200rpm drive that takes it's toll on the total system's performance. With only around 23MB/s average write rate, it is modest and can make some tasks seem long. I found getting used to it wasn't such a great ordeal even when coming off of a considerably faster HDD from my desktop, though a faster drive would never have hurt. That being said, it doesn't change the fact that it can be swapped out for a bigger, faster drive in the future. Performing such an operation however, will void the warranty if not done by qualified personnel.

Notebook	PCMark05
Asus A6KT Q086 (1,8GHz Turion64 MT-34)	2,539 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950)	2,994 PCMarks
Alienware M7700 (AMD Athlon FX-60, Nvidia Go 7800GTX)	5,597 PCMarks
Toshiba Tecra M6 (1.66GHz Intel T2300E, Intel GMA 950)	2,732 PCMarks
Sony VAIO FE590 (1.83GHz Core Duo)	3,427 PCMarks

PCMark05 -- a reasonable score for a single core processor with a 4200 RPM drive

The speakers

The speakers are pretty common, and lack power. They are quite "screamy", showing a tendency to exaggerate higher frequencies (8kHz +) but they are laptop speakers though.

Built-in Webcam

This version of the A6KT came with a built-in webcam and microphone, for easy communication on the go. The camera's quality is decent, and the voice recorder is also clear and efficient. It does make talking over the internet so much faster and more enjoyable as it removes the need for an extra USB slot for the webcam and the need to connect an annyoing microphone. Besides, it stands out pretty nice and gives the notebook a "multimedia-look".

The Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard is really nicely built. The plastic used for the buttons feels comfortable, though I reckon it will show signs of wear and tear eventualy, with several keys becoming shiny. The color is a very dark grey and it makes the keyboard look somehow less sober than a black one would. The keys are firm enough not to press accidentally, but don't become tiresome for the fingers. The symbols on them are clear and white, and positioned in the upper and lower left corner of the keys for primary and seconday functions and upper right for tertiary functions. The Function keys allow a multitude of things, like jumping to either STR or STD (suspend to RAM or suspen to disk), turning on the WLAN, controlling the brightness of the LCD, the system volume and so on.

The touchpad 16:9 format is really nice

Keyboard view 

The touchpad is pressure sensitive, it respnds quickly and accurately and most important of all it's the same aspect ratio as the screen so you don't have to move your fingers 2 times to reach the end of the screen. It also has horizontal and vertical scrolling.

Ports

The notebook features a Wireless Lan card that works great and picks up even fairly weak signals, a normal RJ-45 network conncetion, a modem, several audio plugs, a card reader, a PCMCIA slot, firewire and infrared conncetions, so you can plug in anything, be it a camcorder or digital camera, or a simple SD MMC card.

Conclusion

The ASUS A6KT is a great budget multimedia notebook. It doesn't matter if you want to just browse the net or watch a DVD or play a favorite video game, you can do it all on this versatile notebook. As long as you know what you want from your laptop and set your configuration priorities straight, this notebook could easily become what you've been looking for. The 15,4'' screen is bright and clear enough to enjoy multimedia content on the laptop in every lighting situation, and even more so thanks to the Mobility Radeon X1600 the laptop comes with. The A6KT is a good, quality buy, a strong, stylish laptop, with decent portability and battery time.

Pros:

• Good build quality and materials
• Stylish, semi-sober look
• Bright and clear widescreen LCD
• Nice keyboard and touchpad
• Cool and quiet when used normally
• Good gaming performance

Cons:

• Small horizontal viewing angles make movies difficult to view when in large numbers
• Slow HDD takes its toll on performance
• Battery life could have beena little higher though i might just be nitpicking
• A little noisy when using it at full power
• It could get a little too warm in the summer, so it may be uncomfortable for lap use
• Not a dual-core and only DDR400

asus a3000 drivers

Can't find the right version of asus a3000 drivers? Now you have come to the right place! Every device driver performs a different function due to the fact that there are so many peripheral devices that connect to your PC's operating system. Peripheral devices are devices such as printers, hard drives, scanners and keyboards. So to make sure the PC operate normally, the latest version of asus a3000 drivers is necessary. Here we introduce the easy-to-use Driver Detective software to solve the drivers issue easily and freely.

Download asus a3000 drivers with Driver Detective Step by Step:

1. Make sure you have the recommended software installed on your computer. Launch it simply to update asus a3000 drivers.

2. Click "Scan Now" button to scan drivers fast and easily.

3. When the scanning finished, you can get a scan summary which shows the details of asus a3000 drivers.

4. Download and install the latest asus a3000 drivers to make sure the computer devices work normally.

Done! Now with Driver Detective software's help, you can download and update asus a3000 drivers fast and easily! What you need do is several mouse clicks. Free download Driver Detective and install the latest asus a3000 drivers immediately!

(Windows all, 300MHz or Higher Processor, 256 MB of RAM, 22 MB of Hard Disk Space)

Dell XPS M1530 review

Dell's XPS branding was once synonymous with futuristically tailored, high-performance gaming systems. But with the acquisition of Alienware back in 2006, Dell sought to steer the branding away from its specialist heritage and usher in a new, luxurious, design-led range.

The first herald of that transformation came in the guise of a radical, briefcase-sized desktop replacement, the Dell XPS M2010. We gave that a favourable review in 2006. Since then, Dell has added the 13.3in XPS M1330 and 17in XPS M1730 to the range, and, now, the XPS M1530 has arrived to fill the gaping 15.4in-sized hole in the line-up.

While the XPS M2010 was a truly remarkable beast, it wasn't until the arrival of the XPS M1330 last year that the XPS range found its true identity. The M1330 was, and still is, the finest looking laptop Dell has ever produced, and so it's no disappointment to find that the M1530 shares its fine sense of style.

Slip the Dell from its packaging and its good looks are immediately apparent. In a refreshing departure from the norm, Dell, unlike many laptop manufacturers, hasn't made recourse to the glossy black cliché. Instead, the lid is adorned with a single block of colour, interrupted only by chrome-effect Dell and XPS logos, and flanked neatly in grey.

Our review model was finished in an attractively subtle, muted shade, dubbed Midnight Blue, but depending on your tastes, there's the choice of Crimson red and Tuxedo black. Whichever you choose, the Micro Satin paint that Dell uses makes sure that the M1530 feels as good as it looks, with a wonderfully tactile, silky-smooth finish.

It isn't often that practicality and fine design meet in the middle, but you only need spend a little time with the M1530 to be assured that its creators thought long and hard about every facet of its design. Tilt the lid back on its strong, pleasingly stiff hinges and the Dell's interior continues to impress.

The wide expanse of brushed-aluminium wrist rest both looks and feels outstandingly luxurious; and it provides a supremely comfortable typing position. Even the omission of lid catches is forgivable- those strong hinges won't allow the lid to flop open in a bag.

Once you've finished gawping at the striking looks, simply turning on the M1530 is enough to elicit another shiver of excitement. Depress the silver on button and the row of touch-sensitive buttons to its right strobe into life with a gentle blue glow. They look lovely and work well too: all it takes is a light press of the finger to mute the volume, or pause a track, each button illuminating and then gently fading away.

The M1530's sterling build quality is equally impressive. Its sheer solidity makes it feel heavier than it truly is, but at 2.62kg, it's far from overweight when compared with other 15.4in laptops.

It's just superbly solid, and no matter how hard we tried, the M1530's base failed to exhibit the slightest hint of flex. It's little surprise that the 15.4in display is more pliant, but again we had to really prod and poke with excessive force before we noticed any distortion on the displayed image.

The resilient build quality pays dividends when it comes to usability too. The wide chassis gives the keyboard plenty of room to breathe, and apart from the slightly compressed shift keys, the layout is eminently sensible.

In use, each of the full-sized keys gives a crisp, positive action that helps make light of long stretches of typing. The trackpad is equally praiseworthy, despite its small dimensions, and its responsiveness is complemented by the light action of the accompanying buttons.

It is testament to the M1530's ergonomic excellence that it's easy to forget about the components beavering away underneath it all. The model Dell sent us came with an array of sensibly chosen parts: an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250and 2GB of memory partnered with a fast 7,200rpm 160GB hard disk. That might not look much on paper, but it goes together to earn the Dell a fine score of1.04 in our application-based benchmarks.

And, thanks to the accompanying Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics, there's even a modicum of gaming ability. It wasn't until we ran Crysis at 1,280 x 1,024 in Medium detail that frame rates dropped to a jerky 15frames per second.

Try as we might, very few serious criticisms can be levelled at the Dell. Perhaps the worst among them is that the glossy 15.4in display doesn't offer acres of desktop space - it settles for a modest 1,280 x 800 resolution - but even then the image quality more than makes up for it.

The panel is impressively bright and, thanks to good contrast, images are reproduced with incredible vibrancy. Pop a DVD in the slot-loading DVD drive, or fire up a game, and any worries about the resolution soon fade away.

Make no mistake, the Dell XPS M1530 is a simply fantastic laptop. If portability is high on your agenda then its more petite stablemate, the XPS M1330, is a better choice, but with its fine combination of ergonomics, power and design, the XPS M1530 is the finest 15.4in laptop we've ever encountered.