HP Pavilion dv6870us Notebook-Turion 64 TL-64 Gold 15.4

...

screen.
4. At least 1.6 GHz dual processor, preferably AMD.
5. Infrared/bluetooth connectivity.
6. DVD burner
The DV6810US met all the requirements except the HDD one.

At 160 GB, the HDD is SMALL! Especially with Windows Vista hogging so much disk space, you can feel the need for additional space. I still decided to go for this one because I have a spare 500 GB external HDD. I use the external HDD to store my multimedia files. The laptop HDD will be primarily used for loading software and temporary storage. Do keep in mind that the external HDD will take up one of your USB ports!

Although, I was looking for anything that had 2 GB or more RAM, I m glad that I bought 3 GB. I strongly recommend at least 3 GB with Vista. Again, although Vista looks smart and has some cool features, it eats any amount of memory you give it! So more the better.

The 15.4 in widescreen with the cool remote and touch-sensitive multimedia controls is one of the best things a multimedia buff will enjoy on this laptop. Watching movies, viewing pictures and playing music is as easy as 1-2-3. Now although, there are 17 in laptop screens out there (and all that real-estate can be pretty useful to artists who edit photos and movies), the factors to consider are cost, weight and portability. DV9810US gives all the same features of a DV6810US on a 17 in screen, and the cost-difference in Apr 08 was only $150. I would have gone for it in a heartbeat had it not been for the weight and portability aspect. A 17 inch laptop will barely fit on the tray-table of an economy seat in an airplane!!! It also consumes that much more battery! And if you don't need 17 inch worth of real-estate on your screen 100% of the time, I would rather buy a 20 inch flat-screen for around $200 and sit it on a table at home!

The DV6810US is powered by 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor. Though this is on of the faster processors in the market, Vista seems to slow it down (Only if Microsoft could have gotten out a better OS!)

I often connect my cell-phone to my laptop using infrared. This was a decisive factor when choosing between this one and Toshiba A205, A215 and P305 models. All of these are slightly superior to DV6810US on some other factors but lack infrared connectivity.

The Toshibas also lost because of the LabelFlash technology they used in their DVD burners. My study showed that HP's LightScribe was a better technology because of the availability of media and performance.

Most other laptops in its class feature a webcam, while this one does not. Again, I already had a good Logitech webcam, so I dint care a lot for the in-built one. Although, it will take-up another of your USB ports, it gives your more portability without having to move the entire laptop.

The weaknesses like only 3 USB ports (against 4 in some other models) and lack of webcam are pretty small, and are heavily outweighed by its strengths. The other OS related problems are inherent to Vista, and I believe would come with all laptops.

The other laptops I considered in my study were...
HP DV9810US
HP DV9820US
HP DV9830US
HP DV9720US
HP DV9730US
HP DV9740US
Toshiba Sat A215-S5848
Toshiba Sat A205-S5863
Toshiba Sat A215-S6804
HP dv6748us
Toshiba Sat A205-S5859
Toshiba Sat A215-S5849
HP DV9812US
Toshiba Sat P305-DS8818
HP DV6810US
HP DV6833US
HP DV6751US
HP DV6830US