Hi All,
The details, features etc are what you can get off the other reviews, or even HP website. I will focus on other technical aspects, and my own experiences
Windows XP Home is the major setback I saw on my lapy, the day I purchased it (first week of april, 2006). Should have been WinXP Pro. But, the rest of the configuration is good for the price I paid (INR 53500)
The motherboard manufacturer, Quanta, has apparently no website of their own, and the BIOS provided by HP doesn’t look too good to me. (No tweaking options!! No Info Available!!)
The piece I purchased had originally one problem. Its S-Video out was not working. So if you are planning to buy this piece, ask the retailer to check S-Video out first.
The Lapy has also developed a new problem, The Hard-disk, has now started giving an error lately, on bootup, saying SMART failure detected!!
Due to these problems, The lapy is about to visit the service centre in a not-too-distant future.
Apart from these issues, The laptop is FINE. For its price and features it provides, its a work of art! Although the CPU is a solo dothan core, its quite decent for the performance. A 65nm CPU might have saved much more power for battery backup (I concentrated on battery part a bit.. i’ll explain shortly), but it would also have increased prices quite a bit (5118TS??). A DDR2 RAM ans someone else has earlier pointed out, would sure have given some more kick!
The intel 915 graphics performs decently, although an optional graphics (ATI / nVidia) at the retailer would’ve been appreciated.
/Start: Added later:/
If you guys are willing to load a non Windows (*x etc ) OS on the laptop, this is important. HP does not support "retail operating systems" on this laptop, and on their products in general. So, you might have problems using Bluetooth, Wireless LAN (?) , and Card reader. I have installed Fedora Core 3, and I was not able to use all three of those as of now. Actally, I haven’t tried hard enough to find drivers etc. If one of you finds it, please do let me know. The remote control, however was working fine with Fedora Core 3 :-)
/End: Added later:/
( Folowing info is provided for information only. I do not endorse any such activity, but if you feel compelled, try thinking that you may lose warranty on your computer, or even damage hardware on imitating my deeds :) Be very sure what you are doing before you are following me! )
There’s something more I did to it, that i’d like to discuss!!
The typical full load battery time of this baby is around:
2 hours 5 minutes with the screen brightness minimum! (running at 1.7GHz, @1.340 V, loaded).
3 Hours, 20 minutes with the screen brightness minimum! (running at 600 MHz, @0.988 V, not loaded).
But I was able to decrease the CPU core voltage as low as 0.924V (@1.7 GHz) and yet recieved a wonderful stability. This was done to conserve battery power mostly, while preserving performane :)
While running Prime95 only (onlu CPU Loaded) The battery backup (@ 100% load, @1.7GHz @0.924 V, screen brightness minimum, BT, WLESS, and screen savers off) is 2 hours 50 minutes and @ 0 %load (except for OS load), @600 MHz @0.924 V, other conditions same, the battery lasted for 4 hours, 15 mnutes :)
/Start: Added Later/
BTW, the minimum voltage required for this processor is 0.700 V @ 600 MHz. For times, when you just need to keep it on, like leaving it on for some downloads.
/End: Added Later/
On other benchmarking tests I found the hard disk to be performing nicely, compared to other components (memory, CPU etc), even after the SMART issue. That surely leaves me happy.
I have recently purchases a 29" TV and sure enough, I’d like to use the s-video out, so this baby’s going to her parents next weekend.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The CPU-Z info on my dv1615TS
CPU-Z version 1.34.1.
CPU(s)
Number of CPUs 1
Name Intel Pentium M
Code Name Dothan
Specification Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.70GHz
Family / Model / Stepping 6 D 8
Extended Family / Model 0 0
Brand ID 22
Package mPGA-479M
Core Stepping C0
Technology 90 nm
Supported Instructions Sets MMX, SSE, SSE2
CPU Clock Speed 598.5 MHz
Clock multiplier x 6.0
Front Side Bus Frequency 99.8 MHz
Bus Speed 399.0 MHz
L1 Data Cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Instruction Cache 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Cache 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Latency 5
L2 Speed 598.5 MHz (Full)
L2 Location On Chip
L2 ECC Check enabled
L2 Data Prefetch Logic yes
L2 Bus Width 256 bits
Mainboard and chipset
Motherboard manufacturer Quanta
Motherboard model 308F, 46.13
BIOS vendor Hewlett-Packard
BIOS revision F.21
BIOS release date 12/22/2005
Chipset Intel i915GMS/i910GML rev. 03
Southbridge Intel 82801FBM (ICH6-M) rev. 03
Sensor chip FFFFFFFF FFFFFFFF
Memory
DRAM Type DDR-SDRAM
DRAM Size 512 MBytes
DRAM Frequency 166.3 MHz
FSB:DRAM 3:5
CAS# Latency 2.5 clocks
RAS# to CAS# 3 clocks
RAS# Precharge 3 clocks
Cycle Time (TRAS) 7 clocks
# of memory modules 1
Module 0 Hyundai Electronics DDR PC2700 - 512 MBytes
Software
Windows version Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
DirectX version 9.0c
------------------------------------------------------------
-GPS