I was Planning to get a notebook for my personal Use and checked out most of the Brands, Like Lenovo, HCL, Dell , Toshiba, Sony Vaio, Acer, Compaq, Sahara, almost all the brands available in India.
But I finally Decided to buy this Baby, Hp Pavillion DV1615TS on 6 th May, 2006,
Some IMP Tech Specs of my Baby:
Proc - Intel® Pentium® M Processor 735A_1.7GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 400MHz FSB
O/S - Win XP Home
RAM - 512MB (1 x 512MB) DDR SDRAM 333MHz, Upgradeable to 2 GB. (Shud have been DDR2 as its faster than DDR)
Proc cache -- 2MB Level-2 Cache (which is why its real fast)
HDD: 80GB (5400 rpm) Seagate.
Optical Drive - Dual Layer DVD±RW/±R
Graphics Card - Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (with up to 128MB shared with >=512MB memory)
Integrated Devices - Integrated 10/100 LAN, Intel® PRO/Wireless 802.11 b/g integrated WLAN, integrated Bluetooth
Display - 14" colour WXGA+ BrightView (Amazing Clarity)
6-cell Lithium-Ion battery ( I get almost 3 Hrs Backup )
Ports - (1) 6-in-1 Digital Media Reader slot, (1) IEEE 1394 port, (1) S-videoport, (1) VGA port, (1) Notebook Expansion Slot, (1)Headphone/Line-out, (2) External Microphone, (1) AC power adapter, (1)RJ-11, (1) RJ-45, (3) USB 2.0 ports
Speakers - Altec Lansing branded speakers (Sound is Low with Quickplay but Manageable, with other apps its good e.g Windows Media player)
Its really very Light - 2.44kg
I got an earphone (I matched it with my Ipod earphones and its as good as this) and a Remote with this laptop for Hp Quick Play, Quickplay lets you play movies or songs on this notebook with booting the system.
This notebook also has 2 slots for earphones so 2 people can connect headphones/earphones to listen to the audio.
The System BIOS also has a Feature of Testing the HDD and the Memory, which anyone can test by getting into the BIOS (F10 will get you in the BIOS, Most systems get into the BIOS by F2) > Advanced > HDD self Test > Memory Self Test. ( You May not get this feature if you do not upgrade the BIOS version from the hp support website )
The above mentioned features makes an amazing laptop, I Myself work for Dell but planned to Buy HP as I know the Quality of Dell Inspiron Laptops, If you really want to go for Dell, please choose the Latitude Series, Latitude systems are more stable than Inspiron’s. Inspiron Laptops are More of Plasticky Nature.
Well coming back to the Point, I would recommend this laptop anyday, as the features are really good, and the best part is I installed Oracle on this system and have run huge queries on this system, and it handles the queries with ease, though it gets a little WARM, when the queries are run.
This System also features Bluetooth and a DVD-DL Burner, had the memory been DDR2 on this system, it wud have rocked more.
My notebook came with a Seagate HDD, which is surprisingly very quiet, the system boots in about 15 Secs, which is FAST. and the Battery is real good, I get close to 3 hrs of battery backup, even when I run the queries, which is amazing.
I would recommend this laptop to students and people who want mobility and speed.
Its been only 15 days since I got this laptop, I will come back with another review once I get to know my notebook better. I have rated this laptop as Very Good, just because It does not have DDR2 memory.
Hope this review provides enough info for you to make a decision in buying this laptop.