Hp Pavilion Dv6227cl Review

This review is for the new Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6227cl, which is currently being billed as an "Entertainment Notebook" by HP. It's a fairly new model in the dv6000 line, and is currently being sold by Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores as well as their online counterparts

* AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 processor running at 1.6 GHz.
* 120 GB hard drive running at 5400RPM (6.6 gigs used as a restore partition.)
* 1024MB DDR2 SDRAM (2 512MB sticks)
* NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 graphics chipset, up to 288MB shared video RAM.
* 15.4" WXGA Hi-Def Bright view Widescreen display.
* 802.11 b/g WLAN
* 8x DVD+ and DVD- R/RW with dual layer support
* 5 in 1 card reader
* ExpressCard54 expansion slot
* Expansion Port 3 for docking stations
* 6 Cell Lithium-Ion battery.
* Windows Vista Home Premium
* HP Mobile Remote Control (plugs into Express card slot)
* Headphones

Comes with advanced word processing software; whether you regularly create tables of content, elaborate footnotes, or complex newsletters this software can handle it all. Clean up your digital pictures with the photo editing software included with this computer. If you have a wireless network at home, wirelessly browse the Web from any room in your house with this Wi-Fi enabled notebook.

The screen on this system is a WXGA Hi-Def Bright view Widescreen display. It's 15.4 inches, and is easily bright enough to see clearly. There were no dead pixels on the unit I purchased, as well as no discernable areas that were leaking light. The lighting seems even throughout the entire area of the screen, and the size is fine for a portable system. The native resolution is 1280 by 800.

This particular model uses the AMD Turion 64 X2 running at 1.6 GHz. Having the dual core setup under Vista is noticeable, although the benefits will get better slowly as more and more apps start moving from single-threaded to multi-threaded. Still, the 2 cores help performance and make up for the lower clock speed setting. The boot up time averaged around 40 seconds.

The hard drive on this system has plenty of storage for a laptop at 120 GB (105 GB usable after formatting and HP Restore partition), but the speed is only 5400 RPM. While acceptable on a laptop, I still wish they had put a 7200 RPM drive in this system. Sometimes it takes a few extra seconds to access files on this system depending on how fragmented they are and how large they are.

It comes with a gigabyte of RAM, which is adequate for running the included Windows Vista and normal programs. I would recommend upgrading to two gigs of RAM down the road for the extra performance and speed. Be aware if you do plan on upgrading that HP uses 2 512MB sticks of RAM, so you will have to purchase two 1 GB sticks for the upgrade.

The video chipset uses the GeForce Go 6150. You can play some games on this system, but I recommend lowering the resolution and graphics details before loading the game so you can play at an acceptable frame rate. Also, some games, such as Oblivion, may not play at an acceptable speed even with all details are set down at their lowest. I recommend going into your BIOS and setting your shared memory for your video at the highest setting possible, 128 MB. If the video system needs more RAM than 128, it pulls it automatically up to 288 MB.

Suggestions: (1) Given this device's Wi-Fi capability, you may want to get a wireless access point for your home, so that you can browse the Web more conveniently from any room. (2) This notebook supports USB 2.0, which allows speedy data transfer between peripherals. (3) For help in deciding if this is the right laptop for you.