HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition (dv6tqe) Laptop -2nd generation
HP Pavillion dv6t Quad Edition. After abortive attempt by HP to divest its PC business, and some past negative dealings with HP rebates, I decided to update my Toshiba i7-740QM to this HP i7-2760QM. So after research, I bought one of these to see if the 2nd Gen Intel i-series CPUs really were "better". Bought through HP for quite a bit more money in Nov. 2011. Specs were very good, but I upgraded (part of the reason it was more expensive) the 5400 rpm hard drive to a 7200 rpm. Though there was a delay at Customs in Singapore (didn't know they were made in China), and a 6-day delay at Customs in Memphis, I finally got this supposedly improved laptop. Strike "supposedly". It ran much cooler than the very good Toshi Satellite 665. Toshi has 8 Gb 1066 RAM, the HP has 8 Gb DDR3 1333 RAM. Same MS Ultimate OS. Same Office Home & Business 2010. Norton 360 v.5.0. Toshi has a good 500 Mb DDR3 nVidia 330, the HP has a (much) better 2 Gb ATI DDR5. Beats Audio is much better than the Toshi's "good" Harmon-Kardons, though I have yet to hear any laptop speakers get even close to external add-ons. Both have a 720p HD, which is quite adequate for non-gamer/non-tech graphics (HP with the good, additional Intel 3000 for routine graphics on the CPU). The Toshi has a multi-DVD, the HP a Blu-Ray ROM/multi-DVD. The Toshi has 3 USB 2.0 ports, the HP two 3.0 (with charging capability, and on my desktop, an added "card" 3.0 runs 3-1/2 to 4 times faster backups and file transfers to 3.0 external drives than the prior 2.0) and 2x2.0 (one 2.0/eSATA). The Toshi booted in (minutes:seconds) about 1:30, the HP in :45 with Norton 360, Adobe, Office, etc. Office, Adobe Photoshop Elements 10, and several other programs on the HP came up in just over 1/2 the time as in the Toshi. The Toshi's 12-cell battery would last about 2 to 2-1/2 hours. The HP's 9-cell ran for a bit over 4 hours. The Toshi's black textured plastic barely shows a fingerprint, the HP's dark umber shows them readily. Both keyboards are similar. I've worked with computers since 1983, though not a tech person, and have lots of experience as an "advanced" novice-level user. The decision to purchase this model HP has so far (2 months) been a very good one, and I was so pleased at the improvements, I'm ordering a new one, for less cost, through Amazon (even though the new models will be out in a couple of months with the new "third generation" i-series CPUs). I gave this (reviewed) one to my son (an IT professional), who likes it also, replacing a very nice Dell Studio XPS (i5 CPU). This Amazon-ordered one has only a 5400 rpm hard drive, but I don't need (in my home and travel) the faster one. Remember, your MS Performance score is determined by the least fast component, which currently (assuming you don't go to an SSD hard drive) is about 5.9 on the 7.6 scale. The 5400 will score slightly lower than the 7200, but everything else critical to use (CPU, RAM, optical drive, etc.) runs significantly faster, often making up for the slower hard drive. And where the Toshi ran hot (not burning, but definitely uncomfortable after a short while of use), the HP gets warm, but not hot. Despite the fingerprints on the dark umber showing (not a performance issue), I found the fingerprint reader to be accurate and helpful (chuckle). So no miracle here, but a definitely worthwhile upgrade for me, and I saved nearly $400 from HP's website. The Toshi was very good 2 years ago, this HP is enough better to justify this under-$1,000 purchase.
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