HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition (Ivy Bridge 2012) First Thoughts (pics, video)

The HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition 7000 series is one of the first Intel Ivy Bridge equipped laptops shipped by the company, with the dv7t Quad Edition being the other. I just got ahold of this updated 2012 edition of the dv6t Quad Edition (hereon out referred to as the dv6tqe) and wanted to post some first thoughts along with the inclusion of some pictures and video. First impressions are meaningful, but by no means is this an authoritative review as that will come after further testing and time spent with this laptop.



Unboxing

The dv6tqe was purchased direct from HP.com the day it was released. I ended up getting it over two weeks after ordering, but that included a shipping delay from the estimate which HP quickly notified me of and sent a 15% off coupon toward any future purchase at HP.com as an apology. I thought that was a nice touch, HP does well in regards to communicating with its customers. Once it arrived the the dv6tqe showed up in a fairly slim and tightly packaged box:



Inside the box you get the dv6t notebook itself, power adapter, power brick and of course product documentation and warranty card.



Video Tour

I did a quick video tour of the HP dv6tqe Ivy Bridge laptop, please excuse the poor voice over and shaky camera work!


Video Tour of HP dv6t-7000
Design

The design of the dv6tqe is all new for 2012, but with that said there’s nothing radical going on here. The standard color is now a midnight black whereas previously it was a dark umber brown for this model. You can’t go wrong with black, apparently it’s the #1 favor color for male buyers of laptops, so HP was obviously thinking in terms of having the widest appeal rather than going out on a limb. The dark black is complimented by a silver trim around the edges and rim of the lid, which really helps to break things up and adds a nice design touch.



The keyboard has a chiclet/island style design, what consumer laptop doesn’t these days though? Heck, even the stodgy Lenovo ThinkPads have this style keyboard now, so we may as well refer to it as standard and forget about calling it out. HP saw fit to include a number pad, there’s plenty of room for this so why not. The touchpad is centered below the alpha keyboard and so appears left of center relative to the laptop as a whole.

One thing I’m not so hot on is the glossy finish around the screen edges and also on the keyboard tray. I understand this adds a shine to the laptop, but it also shows dust and fingerprints that requires wiping down if you’re a stickler for cleanliness. I also found a couple of fit and finish issues, which I’m not surprised by as this is one of the first units to ship. A plastic speaker cover on the screen area was not glued down properly, which is an annoying defect to have on a $1,000 laptop. Glue, really HP? Also, the keyboard tray is not seated quite right, leaving the front edge sticking up and thus a sharp area that rubs against the wrists.

Screen

I opted for the 1920 x 1080 screen upgrade that HP refers to as the Full HD Anti-Glare during customization. It costs $150, which is quite pricey, but boy is it worth it. This screen is amazing! I took some video to demonstrate the excellent viewing angles and color reproduction it has:


HP Pavilion dv6tqe Screen Demo
And if you’re in the office and YouTube is blocked, then take a look at these still images that compare vertical and horizontal viewing angles:



Though this is not an IPS screen, or at least not according to HP, it’s quite obviously a premium screen that has excellent color reproduction and good viewing angles. Brightness is more than ample and the color and contrast very good. I have to say, I wasn’t expecting much for the screen as the last generation was just so-so, but this was a real unexpected positive. Again, I highly recommend the $150 upgrade to the HD screen.

Ports Selection

As you would expect with a 15.6” screen notebook designed to be a multimedia / gaming machine you get a good selection of ports. On the left side you have a monitor out port, HDMI, Ethernet LAN (RJ-45), two USB 3.0 ports, headphone jack, and microphone jack:



On the right side, you get another USB 3.0 port, USB 2.0 port, the power jack and the optical drive which is Blu-Ray in this case:



On the front side you get an SD card reader:



Performance

Of course the biggest concern for most purchasing the dv6tqe will be how fast it is and how well it performs in regards to gaming. First, we should go over the specs of this notebook as it was configured via HP.com:

Processor: Intel Core i7-3610QM (Ivy Bridge)
Screen: 15.6” full HD anti-glare display (1920 x 1080)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT650M 1GB DDR5 memory
Memory: 8GB DDR3 RAM
Storage: 750GB 7200RPM HD
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Backlit keyboard
Battery: 6-cell Li-Ion
Wireless: HP TrueVision WebCam
This is a first look and there hasn’t been enough time to take this guy through all its paces yet, but we did run a couple of benchmarks to test out the Core i7-3610QM and Nvidia GT650M

PCMark7 Result:

2,877 PCMarks



3DMark 11 Result:

2,349 3DMarks



Those scores were achieved with no tweaking of the system whatsoever, they are completely out of the box scores. For a comparison, here is what the Lenovo Y480 with Ivy Bridge we recently reviewed scored:

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 (Intel Core i7-3610QM, NVIDIA 640M LE, 8GB RAM, 5400RPM HD)

3DMark11: 1,333 3DMarks
PCMark7: 2,502 PCMarks
So as you would expect, the dv6tqe pretty easily beats the Y480, especially in regards to graphics as the Nvidia 650M is far superior to the Nvidia 640M LE the Y480 has.

More to Come

Stay tuned to the site as we continue evaluation of the dv6t-7000 and post the full review next week!

Article Source:http://www.laptopreviews.com/hp-pavilion-dv6t-7000-quad-edition-ivy-bridge-2012-first-thoughts-pics-video-2012-05