HP Pavilion DV1000 Entertainment Notebook PC - Multimedia Notebook A Breed Apart
by Jason Clark on October 2, 2004 11:03 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Final Words
Overall, the DV1000 is just short of everything that we want to see in a mid-range multimedia notebook. The 14.0" wide-aspect ratio screen is just large enough that it doesn't become a hassle to watch movies, and at the same time, it is small enough that it doesn't make it hard to carry around and make it a mobile notebook. This is something that we give HP high marks for. A lot of attempts have been made to create the "ultimate multimedia notebook", usually without a sense that the end-user would want to carry it around, which is why we saw and continue to see a lot of notebooks with 15.4" wide-aspect ratio screens. This large display specification alone makes it really hard to use it on a flight or lug it around to classes or meetings, and let's face it, a 14.1" XGA (4:3 aspect ratio) display isn't that great for a multimedia notebook. It is definitely nice to see a notebook that deviates from this "norm".Priced at $1,574 (excluding the $50 mail in rebate), our Pavilion DV1000 Entertainment Notebook PC sample only featured a 1.5GHz Banias Pentium-M 705 processor, but this helped drive down the cost. Note that this is not exactly the same ol' 1.5GHz as previously introduced. While it differs from its other new Pentium-M Dothan brothers (715, 725, 735, 745, and 755) in its cache size of 1MB and 130nm process, it apparently has a few architectural differences, but this doesn't necessarily affect performance over the previous 1.5GHz Pentium-M. Based on our understanding, we probably would get better battery life from a Dothan Pentium-M due to the power consumption specs. Though, we should note that we have not attempted to test our theory out on this notebook.
Our personal recommendation is to go after the 1.6GHz Dothan Pentium-M 725 if you are in a budget crunch ($50 more than the 1.5GHz Banias Pentium-M 705), but for another $100 or $150, you can configure your DV1000 with a 1.7GHz Pentium-M 735 or 1.8GHz Pentium-M 745, respectively. For either processor choice, we heavily recommend choosing the BrightView display option, as that what we sampled.
Considering that QuickPlay actually boots in less time than it takes to perform a Windows XP boot, it is a very relevant feature. While it may not consume less power (and generate less heat) than in Windows XP or bypass the CPU, it does boot faster and leave the user with less clutter to manage, which meets our own requirements for making a system-off feature beneficial. This is something that we found lacking with Acer's Aspire Arcade.
The only specific flaws that we found in regard to the DV1000 were the lack of an integrated microphone, the small "Back" and "OK" buttons, some unlit buttons (function, end, back, and ok), and the inability to turn off the LEDs in the QuickPlay function. We were a little stumped as to why HP didn't choose the 855GME chipset over the older 855GM, since the newer chipset seems to offer Intel's Display Power Saving Technology (a.k.a. DPST), but HP told us that the 855GME is more expensive and gives limited benefits (i.e. 333MHz system memory, DSPT, etc.) that they didn't think was worth the price overhead. Aside from that, the DV1000 is a great notebook that makes a significant impression on us; enough so that it makes it onto our buy list.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
10 Comments
View All Comments
Biochem101 - Thursday, October 28, 2004 - link
Ohh yeah, just to add.The dv1040us machine has at the minimum the following specs:
Centrino 725 1.6GHz CPU 2mb cache
64 mb shared video memory (cry, but im dealing with it)
Those are the only differnces that stand out from the AT review model.
Biochem101 - Thursday, October 28, 2004 - link
I just picked one of these puppies up for ~1100 AR. When I was shopping, I was looking for a very portable laptop with some performnce. So far I love it. The screen seems to have a built in anti-glare film similar to the film used on my Sony Trinitron CRT. It provides adequate glare relief in most situations. I did notice the font blur and was somewhat dissappointed with that problem. But all in all, I found a compact, light and relatively powerful laptop with great battery performance. I havent done any performance tests on the machine yet (its the 1.6G version - dv1040us model), but I doubt there will be much difference between my machine and he one AT has reviewed here.imho- im glad a ran across this review, I was just looking for some info on the general performance of the chipset in the machine, not a machine specific review. KUDOS to AT for souping up their number of reviews.
Pete - Sunday, October 24, 2004 - link
BTW, the glare on this laptop was pretty harsh when I viewed it in CompUSA, although there was a very bright fluorescent light directly behind my shoulder. My eyes got tired looking at it after 15 mins, whereas the "regular" LCD on the Toshiba next to it was *very* easy to read.It's not just that the dv1000's screen was glossy, either. Cleartype fonts looked kind of blurry or oily, not nice at all. Actually, it's possible the screen was something like BGR, and Cleartype was set for RGB subpixel smoothing. I'll have to look into that, as the screen is this laptop's Achilles heel, and one too big for me to ignore.
Pete - Sunday, October 24, 2004 - link
No, but a faster video card will, and the BenQ Joybook 7000 has the same formfactor and screen with a Mobility Radeon 9700 to boot! I'm convinced that would sell like hotcakes here, and I'm not sure why either HP or BenQ haven't started selling them here. Apparently this Intel IGP scores 2.5K in 3DM2001, not even 2003--frickin' abysmal. I'm not even sure it'd be fast enough for something like Age of Mythology or Warcraft 3 at this screen's native res.Andrew, start pushing Anandtech's weight around to get a laptop with this formfactor and discrete graphics in the USA! :)
airfoil - Thursday, October 7, 2004 - link
Quote: "but for another $100 or $150, you can configure your DV1000 with a 1.7GHz Pentium-M 735 or 1.8GHz Pentium-M 745, respectfully."Respectfully? Does a faster prcoessor buy more respect?
trikster2 - Monday, October 4, 2004 - link
#3 that's really strange. 2gb just to play a DVD sounds excessive#4 Not sure who the ODM is but there is a Benq Joybean that is identicle
#3 my main reservation with this notebook is the brightview or whatever screen. The ones I've seen on sony and fujitsu's at frys have a lot of glare. I dumped my CRT for an LCD due to glare (lots of windows) would hate to be fighting glare on a glossy laptop screen too.
In comparison to a CRT, how bad is the glare on this laptop?
Thanks!
SDA - Sunday, October 3, 2004 - link
Question-- who makes this notebook? (I know it has an HP sticker, but IIRC HP don't make their own notebooks like.) I ask because I'd like to see if there are any nearly identical no-name equivalents available.AndrewKu - Saturday, October 2, 2004 - link
#2 - Windows is reading it wrong.Scarceas - Saturday, October 2, 2004 - link
The article says a 2GB partition is used for the quickplay system.The screen shot shows 204MB. 204MB seems more reasonable. Might want to update that.
CasmirRadon - Saturday, October 2, 2004 - link
Sounds great, if/when my old Presario notebook craps out on me in the next year or so this will be the kind of form-factor/functionality that I will be looking for. My friend just got a Pavillion, and I must say that it makes me jealous if only for the exceedingly convenient placement of headphone/usb ports. That is the kind of feature that many of us forget to look for when shopping for a notebook, but makes all the difference after extended use.