S$2799
Product Summary
7.2
out of 10View score
The bad: Poor performance; no TV tuner; average battery life; lacks dedicated video memory for high-end gaming.
The bottom line: Don't want an enormous desktop replacement but long for solid entertainment and computing features and performance? The affordable and well-designed HP Pavilion dv4000 delivers.
Read full review of the HP Pavilion dv4000 series »
Average User Rating
from 3 users
7.3
out of 10CNET Asia Review
With the S$2,799 (US$2,007.17) Pavilion dv4000, HP delivers a well-designed and versatile multimedia laptop at an affordable price. Though not as portable as a true thin-and-light such as the Dell Inspiron 700m, the stylish Pavilion dv4000 is light enough to haul around occasionally. Better yet, it's chock-full of the entertainment features that most users will need, and it's quite competent at common productivity and multimedia tasks. It doesn't pack the graphics performance necessary for demanding gaming, and it lacks a TV tuner (found only in significantly more expensive systems), but there's not much else that the Pavilion dv4000 can't handle. We think it's a terrific choice for any home user or student.
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Striking just the right combination of black and silver, HP made the Pavilion dv4000 one cool-looking laptop. The inside is black; the lid, the sides, and the touch pad are silver; and a handful of status lights scattered around the case glow a pleasing blue. Similar to the Acer Aspire 1690, the Pavilion dv4000 falls somewhere between a thin-and-light and a desktop replacement, measuring 33mm thick, 358mm wide, and 258mm deep. At 3.01kg, it's approximately the same weight as the Dell Inspiron 6000, and only just 900g lighter than the 17-inch PowerBook G4, a purebred desktop replacement. With its 440g AC adapter, the Pavilion dv4000 has a reasonable travel weight of 3.45kg.
We particularly like the Pavilion dv4000's large keyboard and found it exceptionally comfortable to type on. The roomy, wide-aspect touch pad has a scrolling strip, but the mouse buttons don't give much, and we're disappointed that HP omitted a touch pad on/off switch, as found on the Pavilion dv1000. Though it doesn't have dedicated track-advance buttons, there are external volume buttons (plus mute) and quick-launch controls for your DVD-and-CD-player application of choice. The Pavilion dv4000's wide-aspect 15.4-inch display isn't the brightest screen we've seen, nor is its 1,280 x 800 (WXGA) native resolution the finest available, but it's adequate for productivity and most entertainment applications. Our test model featured HP's BrightView display technology--basically a glossy coating over the screen--which gives the Pavilion dv4000 an extra dose of brightness and contrast but also picks up stray reflections. The HP Pavilion dv4000's angled front edge accommodates a set of stereo speakers, which sound warmer than your average laptop's speakers, even with the lid closed.
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Like the previous Pavilion dv1000 model and other multimedia notebooks such as the Toshiba Qosmio G20, the Pavilion dv4000 doesn't need to boot Windows to play DVDs, audio CDs, homemade MP3 discs, or songs stored on the system's hard drive. Using HP's Linux-based QuickPlay software, the Pavilion dv4000 gets to the opening credits of a movie or the first track of an audio CD in 16 seconds--about a minute quicker than booting up Windows and starting Media Player. Also included is a nifty remote control for advancing tracks, adjusting the volume, and muting the audio; it snaps into the machine's PC Card slot when not in use. The only big-ticket entertainment item the Pavilion dv4000 lacks is a TV tuner, as found on significantly more expensive machines such as the Qosmio G20 and the Asus W1N, though you can always buy an external USB tuner for around S$150 (US$107.57).
The Pavilion dv4000 manages to cram in quite a few ports and connections. You get a PCI-Express card slot (high-speed peripherals are expected to arrive soon) as well as a traditional Type II PC Card slot. Digital photographers and music mavens will enjoy the 6-in-1 flash-card reader, which supports Memory Stick/PRO, Secure Digital, MultiMedia Card, SmartMedia, and xD-Picture cards. You also get four USB 2.0 ports distributed around the edges, plus one four-pin FireWire port and connections for audio, VGA, and S-Video. There's a connector for HP's xb2000 expansion dock. And with a 100Mbps LAN port, a V.92 modem, and Bluetooth and 802.11b/g radios, you're in good shape for getting online. All of the ports are clearly labeled with little icons lining the edges of the notebook.
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On top of its multimedia capabilities, the Pavilion dv4000 delivers midrange-performance computing. Based on Intel's current-generation Centrino platform, our test unit came with a 1.73GHz Pentium M 740 processor and 1GB of 333MHz memory--more than enough for most everyday tasks. Also onboard was an 80GB hard drive spinning at a slow 4,200rpm. The Pavilion dv4000's double-layer DVD burner unfortunately doesn't support LightScribe technology (unlike its US counterpart), which would have allowed monochrome label etches onto the surface of DVDs and CDs.
Performance And Battery Life
The Pavilion dv4000 didn't perform too spectacularly when we ran our standard MobileMark 2002 benchmarking software. The unit obtained a performance score of 164 which was a far cry from the Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 and the Dell Inspiron 6000.
| BAPCo MobileMark2002 performance rating |
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In terms of battery life, the HP did reasonably well for a notebook of its screen size and brightness. With a rating of 185 minutes (slightly over 3 hours), the Dell was the overwhelming winner at 300 minutes though the dv4000 managed to outdo the Fujitsu's measly 147 mintues.
| BAPCo MobileMark2002 battery life (in minutes) |
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Service And Support
HP backs the Pavilion dv4000 with an industry-standard one-year warranty. HP offers accident insurance and express repair service, and upgrading to three years of basic coverage. The company Web site is a cornucopia of troubleshooting help, self-service downloads, tips, and FAQs. Should anything go wrong, HP's technical staff is on duty 24 hours a day via a toll-free number or e-mail.
Rate It Now
User Reviews
Take a beating and keeps on running...
Oct 23, 2007Rating: 8 out of 10 (Excellent)
Pros: Endurance- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week marathon winner
Cons: Layout of the keypad- wide wrist area
Opinion:
I see all the specs have been covered, so I'll add a few details about the everyday use of this laptop. I've had this computer for about a year and half now. The OS was initially installed incorrectly- nothing worse than buying a new laptop only to have it completely crash at the airport when your on your way out of the country and far far far from any customer support.
After reinstalling the OS, drivers and software, I have not had any further issues with this computer. I'm a web publisher with dozens of websites and am on my computer no less than 14 hours per day and often up to 20. I also travel a great deal and have physically abused this computer- one time dropping it and sliding it across a room. I was certain it would be damaged, but it was fine.
It's not too ... Read more
not a bad laptop to have
Jul 5, 2006Rating: 7 out of 10 (Very good)
Pros: big screen, dual lyr dvd burner and reader, fairly quick
Cons: no remote control when i bought mine. no tv tuner.
Opinion:
should have tv tuner if they are calling it an entertainment notebook
Good looking, needs some initial upgrades
Nov 7, 2005Rating: 7 out of 10 (Very good)
Pros:
Cons:
Opinion:
dv4220TX CPU is great (750 1.86GHz), full of features (even it has lightscribe to etch CD labels with laser!) and graphics card is excellent (X700 128MB), but the memory is often not enough to handle multimedia and gaming tasks that it needs to be upgraded to at least 1GB DDR2. However, to upgrade to 1GB, I had to replace the two 256MB modules installed by HP with two 512MB modules. The fan is virtually running all the time. As I type this review, I'm in room temperature and no other applications running (except IE), the fan is currently running at medium speed, pretty noisy... HP should've installed 5400RPM hard drive by default to cope with the CPU; 4200RPM is not fast enough. The unit comes with Windows XP Home, HP should've ship it with XP Pro for a notebook with those specs... At the bottom line, simply upgrade the RAM, replace HDD to a faster one, and this notebook will ... Read more
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