HP Pavilion dv2 Review

Our HP Pavilion dv2 (dv2-1030us)

features the following specifications:
1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo Processor MV-40
4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM 666MHz (1 Dimm)
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1
12.1" WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1280x800)
320GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3410 Graphics (512MB)
802.11a/b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth
5-in-1 card reader
External Lightscribe SuperMulti 8x DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
6-Cell Li-ion battery
Dimensions: 11.50 in (L) x 9.45 in (D) x 0.93 in (min H) / 1.29 in (max. H)
Weight: 3.95 lbs (with 6-cell battery)
Price as configured: $749

Build and Design

The design of the Pavilion dv2 is brand new for HP and features the AMD "Yukon" platform designed specifically for ultrathin laptops. The body of the dv2 is smooth with rounded edges, making it extremely comfortable in your hand while carrying it around. The design is compact, but the overall footprint is almost as wide as a 13-inch notebook because of the bezel around the keyboard and screen. The screen also sports a latchless design, making it easy to open the notebook with one hand. Although the lid lacks any latch to keep it held shut, the hinges feel nice and strong, keeping the lid secure. Pressing firmly onto the back of the screen cover will produce some ripples on the screen ... but you must apply significant pressure to cause this.

What might look like a giant beefy hinge for the 12-inch display is actually a standard 6-cell battery with a small hinge on either side of this thin and light laptop. The plastic covered, alloy-reinforced lid features a glossy black finish that looks subtle and stylish and doesn't scream "LOOK AT ME!" the way that the HP Imprint Finish does on most HP Pavilion notebooks.
The magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis is quite rigid and suffers from no flex or creaks even when twisted between my hands. Granted, this is due to the fact that the dv2 is less than one inch thick ... meaning there isn't much empty space inside the notebook for anything to bend under pressure. Bottom line, this notebook can survive the use and abuse from students who will toss it into a backpack every day for several years in a row.

In terms of upgradeability, the dv2 is much easier to upgrade than most netbooks and even some notebooks currently on the market. One panel provides access to the single RAM slot and a place for a Gobi WWAN card (available on custom configurations starting in June). Another panel gives you access to the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth card, and a final panel contains the hard drive. Although the dv2 provides easy access for upgrades, you won't be able to add more RAM to this notebook since it comes maxed out with a 4GB RAM module.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Most low-priced, full-size notebooks currently on the market feature poorly built keyboards that show significant flex/bounce when typing pressure is applied. This isn't the case with the dv2 thanks in large part to the ultrathin chassis design. There simply isn't space inside the notebook for the keyboard to flex or bounce.

Each key press has the perfect amount of resistance with soft, quiet clicks. The keys are accurate and responsive and I enjoyed typing on this keyboard. The overall size of the keyboard looks virtually identical to what we've seen on other 12-inch notebooks from HP ... and that's a good thing. This keyboard is much nicer than what is featured on most netbooks. The keys are easy to read and are a good size ... except for the top row of Function keys which are a little too small and not particularly easy to press without hitting another key by mistake.

The touchpad is an ALPS model and feels very responsive with little lag. The entire touchpad surface is made of a high gloss plastic, and can sometimes be hard to use depending on how dry or oily your fingertip happens to be. The surface needs to collect some of your finger's natural oils to allow for easy movement on the touchpad. While the reflective touchpad surface looks cool HP probably would have been better off using the same type of textured touchpad surface used on the HP Pavilion tx2500 and TouchSmart tx2. The touchpad buttons are in a great location and are easy to control with your thumb. The buttons provide mild feedback with a shallow movement that gives an audible click when pressed.

Display

The 12.1" WXGA glossy widescreen display features LED backlighting and is bright and vibrant with excellent colors for viewing images or movies. Contrast seems a little better than what we've seen on the larger 14-inch screens on the HP Pavilion dv4, but blacks aren't quite as deep as we would like to see. The 1280 x 800 resolution is significantly more than what you get on the average netbook screen and is the perfect match for a 12-inch screen.
Viewing angles are average with limited vertical viewing angles that give you a sweet spot of +/- 15 degrees. Horizontal viewing angles are much better with colors staying true even out to very wide angles. Brightness levels are more than adequate for viewing in a bright office setting. Sunlight readability is limited, but as long as the sun isn't shining directly at the glossy screen the dv2 is perfectly usable outside on a table at a coffee shop.

Ports and Features

The HP Pavilion dv2 comes equipped with most of the ports you need, including three USB ports and a media card reader. While three USB ports might not sound like a lot, that's the same number of ports found on most 13-inch and 14-inch notebooks. The other thing to keep in mind is that the dv2 is between 0.93 and 1.29 inches thick. Some ultrathin notebooks like the Apple MacBook Air only have a single USB port. The really impressive thing to mention here is the addition of a HDMI port for connecting video and audio to an external monitor or HDTV.
We would have liked to see at least one USB/eSATA combo port and possibly even a docking station connector on this notebook, but given the ultrathin form factor and $750 price point we can forgive these omissions. One thing worth mentioning is that the HP website claims the dv2-1030us configuration of the dv2 doesn't include Bluetooth. However, our review unit does indeed include Bluetooth and several new dv2 owners in our discussion forums also report that the dv2-1030us inlcudes Bluetooth. That said, here's a quick tour of the sides:
Front: No ports, just indicator lights and the speakers.

Performance

HP offers the Pavilion dv2 with the new AMD Athlon Neo 64-bit processor. This single-core processor is bassically a scaled-down version of AMD's current 65nm notebook processors with a lower TDP (15 watts) which means this notebook shouldn't get as hot on your lap and should last a little longer on battery power. While the power consumption of the new Athlon Neo isn't as low as the Intel Atom, it's clear from our synthetic benchmarks that the 1.6GHz AMD Athon Neo is faster than the 1.6GHz Intel Atom. Likewise, the processor inside the dv2 can encode video or run Photoshop filters in a fraction of the time it takes the Intel Atom processor to perform the same task.
The only time the Athlon Neo processor seemed noticeably slower than a low-voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor was when we attempted to launch multiple applications at the same time. Multitasking in this way generally created a delay of a few seconds, but the delay was never severe enough to cause problems.
Not only does the dv2 run 64-bit Windows Vista with ease, but it's packed with a full 4GB of system RAM in a single DIMM module. That's four times the amount of RAM you get in a netbook! The 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive also gives you plenty of storage for a full entertainment library. As great as all that sounds, the big news with this laptop is the availability of discrete graphics thanks to the new ATI Radeon HD 3410 graphics and 512MB of dedicated memory.While it's true that a few netbooks (such as the ASUS N10) offer discrete graphics, the reality is that the Intel Atom platform lacks the muscle to truly take advantage of discrete graphics when playing games ... at least based on the netbooks we've reviewed so far. Our own lab tests confirm that Atom-based netbooks with dedicated graphics cards only perform marginally better than Atom-based netbooks with integrated graphics when playing games. This is yet another reason that the dv2 should be labeled as a notebook rather than a netbook. For the first time ever consumers have a low-cost ultra-portable that offers flawless 1080p video playback and can even play many 3D video games at reasonable frame rates!
The dv2 was able to play Bioshock at 1280 x 800 resolution at 12-30 frames per second with detail settings at medium and at 24-40fps with detail settings at low. Likewise, the dv2 can handle Unreal Tournament III at 1280 x 800 and keep frame rates in the low to mid 30s. A newer title like Left 4 Dead only managaes an average of around 26fps, but that's still pretty impressive. Notebooks equipped with Intel integrated graphics just can't handle games like that.
The dv2 is at least several hundred dollars less expensive than other thin and light 12-inch notebooks that offer similar or superior processor performance and lower quality graphics, so it's hard to find serious fault with the dv2 in the performance department