HP dv2 reviewed: With great power comes less than stellar battery life

The folks at Laptop Magazine have followed up yesterday’s first impressions post on the HP dv2 with a detailed review. The verdict? It’s definitely bigger, more powerful, and more expensive than the typical netbook. But that extra power takes… well, extra power. And the standard battery dies after about 2.5 hours of use.

Still, if you find the typical netbook’s 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive and integrated graphics to be limiting, the HP dv2 might be worth a look. The laptop has a 12.1 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, a 320GB HDD, 4GB of RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon graphics, and an AMD Athlon Neo processor. It weighs in at just 3.8 pounds.

Laptop Magazine found the 92% sized keyboard to be a bit cramped, especially since there’s a bit of room on the left and right sides of the keyboard. It loks like HP just took the HP Mini 1000 keyboard and threw it into a larger chassis instead of embiggening it first.

The dv2 apparently does reasonably well with older graphics-intensive video games, but it’s not going to take on a high end gaming rig.

I’m going to wait until I get my hands on a dv2 before making a final determination. But it sounds to me like the computer could be a good option for users who find netbooks too limiting and traditional laptops too large. But this is not a no-compromise device. It’s not as fast as many newer, heavier laptops. And it doesn’t get the kind of battery life we’ve come to expect from netbooks. Perhaps most importantly, it starts at $749, which makes it quite pricey compared to the average netbook.

Posted on Wednesday, April 8th, 2009, 2:01 pm by Brad Linder

pauli

so… if it's too big, too expensive, too slow, and too power hungry… why are you covering it?
BoloMKXXVIII

$749 for 2½ hours? I wonder what kind of drugs they are using. This is nothing more than a poor performance mini-laptop with a differnent name on it.
okeribok

Exactly. Don't you have enough REAL netbooks to cover? Could you please post a topic on what you consider to be netbooks and thus coverable? My suggestion:
- <100% keyboard
- can run windows
- can have a 2.5″ SATA HD
- <11″ display
- has more than 3 hours of webbrowsing in the battery
- has wifi
If *any* of these conditions are not met, then it's not a netbook in my book.
SBS

Giving you a tick for the use of the word 'embiggening.'

Sterling work, sir.
Toni

and it's not even a “mini”-laptop: the display might be 12″, but look at the huge bezel around it!

i wonder when journalists will finally start to notice that it's not enough to include a small display when the whole chassis has enough useless plastic around for a traditional 14″-laptop…
mitsuo_daisho

I'm curious as to whether or not the dv2's yukon chipset supports switchable graphics without requiring a reboot. That would certainly go a long way towards simultaneously alleviating any concerns about heat and addressing the battery life issue, hopefully bringing it up to the 3.5-4.5hr mark that HP were boasting at CES. After all the X1250 IGP should still offer plenty more performance than we've all become accustomed to from intel 945gs part, and if the past year has taught us anything it's how LITTLE we can get by on.

That being said a HD capable Low(er) cost ultra-portable certainly has it's appeal and provided the aforementioned Discrete to IGP switch doesn't require rebooting then I think I'll pick one up as soon as the Moonlight white color (without the garish graphics) is available.
phreaker18

doesnt it have a 21.1 ” screen … please correct me if im wrong
Mark

Ugh. Why? You can get a decent 12-13″ laptop for less.
DougC3

Instead of embiggening the keyboard, they should have emlittled the chassis and screen bezel

And, if someone can add features to a netbook, such as a bigger screen, etc, without getting the price, weight, or dimensions outside the present netbook limits, I don't see what's to complain about. (I'd say the maximum weight and dimension limits should be about those of the Eee PC 1000 series, and I guess the max price is debatable, maybe US $500-600 or so.)

Also, I think there's a niche for a thin, light, compact 12-inch “stretched, flattened” unit with the same components as a netbook and a similar price. It need not be called a netbook.
REMF

Its a bad compromise.

the screen is too large (11.1″ would be much better)
the hardware is too unoptimised (AMD Conesus would be much better)
ThinkyT

Its bezelicious!
ThinkyT

>> Also, I think there's a niche for a thin, light, compact 12-inch “stretched, flattened” unit with the same components as a netbook and a similar price. It need not be called a netbook. <<

Ala Samsung NC20 which is currently listed at $549 @ Newegg. Long bettery life, 1280×800 display & approx 3 lbs.
ThinkyT

Its bezelicious!
ThinkyT

>> Also, I think there's a niche for a thin, light, compact 12-inch “stretched, flattened” unit with the same components as a netbook and a similar price. It need not be called a netbook. <<

Ala Samsung NC20 which is currently listed at $549 @ Newegg. Long bettery life, 1280×800 display & approx 3 lbs.
http://www.laptopbatteriesinc.co.uk/hp-f1739a-laptop-battery-p-2392.html hp laptop battery

the X1250 IGP should still offer plenty more performance than we've all become accustomed to from intel 945gs part, and if the past year has taught us anything it's how LITTLE we can get by on.
http://www.laptopbatteriesinc.com/ mylaptopbattery

Hp is great,I like it
Martin___007

I own this very laptop and despite these comments and all I find it very very good for gaming and portability, so please try out the product instead of bringing your worthless initial thoughts on the table.
http://www.dressesofwedding.com/ wedding dresses

please try out the product instead of bringing your worthless initial thoughts on the table.

HP dv2 reviewed: With great power comes less than stellar battery life

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