As an AMD fan, this laptop is perfect with its combination of a quad core CPU and Radeon 56xx series GPU. It has the best combination of aesthetic design, build quality, and components. It will be hard to find another laptop at a low price with these components and a 15.6" screen others are 17" which can be bulky to carry around. The 1366x768 screen is good for tasks such as videos and gaming, but it might not be enough for those used to and require higher resolutions. The only negatives about this laptop are the lack of a firewire port (for the video folks) and an ExpressCard slot, and weak sound. Also, a couple things that aren't listed in the product description is that the HP logo on the lid lights up when turned on and an integrated Radeon 4250.
The Graphics
I recommend staying away from laptops by Toshiba, Sony, and Panasonic to prospective buyers that plan on playing games and considering similarly spec'd laptops. AMD offered to release Catalyst drivers for Mobility Radeons several months ago and these companies chose to opt out. This means that if there's a problem with the laptop's graphics driver e.g. game glitches, you will have to wait/hope that these companies release updated drivers instead of downloading ones released regularly by AMD.
As far as the Radeon 5650, it's been great thus far. I've been running Battlefield: Bad Company 2 smoothly at 1080p on an external monitor with settings on high, and AA and AF off. It will easily play most games out for the PC today and many games coming out. For the programmers out there interested in OpenCL, the 5650 is compatible and only requires downloading the Stream SDK from AMD.
The addition of the integrated Radeon 4250 is also welcomed. It allows for PowerXpress for power savings when running on battery or just to cut down on the electric bill. For those wondering, PowerXpress is AMD's version of switchable graphics. The general difference being PowerXpress is the combination of integrated and dedicated Radeon graphics, while switchable graphics is the combination of Intel HD integrated and either Nvidia or AMD graphics. This is another driver update consideration because Intel doesn't give driver updates to AMD for their graphics users will have to rely on the company from which they buy their laptops.
The Processor
AMD mobile CPUs have gotten a bad reputation for running hot. It's my opinion that it's just laptop manufacturers choosing to pair cheap parts and poor cooling solutions with AMD CPUs because they're "cheap" processors. In fact, the areas that get hottest on the dv6 are the left palm rest where the hard drive resides underneath and the vent on the left side where the laptop fan shunts the heat produced by the CPU and GPU under full load. Rest assured that the dv6 will run as cool as laptops with the Core i processors.
Now, the N930 shouldn't be compared to the Core i7. This CPU is designed and priced to compete with the Core i5 and i3 CPUs. The caveat to comparing it to the i5 and i3 is that the i5 and i3 are dual core with the i5 able to trick Windows into thinking it has 4 cores through Intel's Hyperthreading technology. With Turbo Boost technology on both Core i3 and i5, the Intel processors will perform better on single threaded applications due to their ability to intelligently overclock while the N930 maxes out on its 2.0 GHz limit. The N930 shines with multithreaded programs where it matches or beats i5 processors. For most users, none of this matters since performance differences in everyday programs like web browsers and Microsoft Office are unnoticeable.
The Power Consumption
Because the N930 is a true quad core, actual battery life for the dv6 is 2.5-3 hours with wireless on, Radeon 4250 activated, and 60% screen brightness while doing light tasks like listening to music, web browsing, and typing documents. Laptops sporting CPUs with fewer cores will have longer battery life due to less cores needing power.
In any case, I highly recommend the dv6 to anyone looking for a laptop at a low price with its specifications. A solid processor with the combination of the Radeon 5650 and 4250 make this laptop an excellent purchase.
Error Corrections and Additions (2010-08-19):
The hard drive is not under the left palm rest, but under the touchpad.
The GPU is under the left palm rest, which is what is generating the heat there.
The dv6-3050us is a United States quickship model for the dv6z Select Edition that's customizable on HP's website.
This does not come with the backlit keyboard or touchscreen. It was mentioned in the comments, but I thought to add it here.
The battery is a standard capacity 6 cell 55Wh battery.
This does not come with recovery DVDs. HP has a utility pre-installed that allows users to make them, which requires 5 DVDs or a USB Flash drive of equal capacity. Dual layer and re-writables will not work. I recommend everyone make these recovery discs the first thing after Windows loads and store them somewhere safe. Make 2 sets if you want to be safe.
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