HP DV3005

HP DV3005

The 13-inch laptop market has seen steady movement over the past year with the release of a quite a few products from manufacturers like HP, Dell, Toshiba and Sony. The one laptop that's been dominant in this space has been Dell’s XPS M1330, which has won much acclaim for its sleek design and great performance.

HP recently introduced the DV3005, which due to its positioning is a direct competitor to Dell’s offering. Let’s find out how it fares.

One thing I have always enjoyed about HP has been the consistency of their designs, over the last few years, with regard to their DV series. All of these laptops have the same “HP imprint” lid and body finish: a glossy tough plastic finish with a limited variety of colors. The DV3005 follows this design philosophy strictly and offers only a basic though fairly attractive black finish.This is prevalent for both the lid and the underside of the laptop.

In build quality, the DV3005 fares well as the construction material used is very sturdy. There was no audible squeak anywhere from the body or the hinges. The only downside is that its glossy surface will attract fingerprints. Weight-wise the laptop is around 2.35 kg, which is a bit on the heavy side but nothing that one can’t live with.

The keyboard area of the DV3005, however, startled me a bit. In a major departure from the past, HP has chosen to equip this model with a very shiny metallic finish, similar to a slab of iron. This is astonishing, as this finish is very reflective and can easily double as a mirror. If this is HP’s attempt at giving the laptop some bling, it fails miserably.

The finish has another drawback in that, apart from being a fingerprint magnet, it can get scratched easily. This was apparent on our test piece, which had a number of tiny but visible scratches. While these do occur on other laptops to, on this particular finish they stand out like pimples on the face of a beauty queen. Not pretty.

The metallic finish is not restricted to the area around the keyboard. It has been used on the keys too. However, this has not affected the typing experience, as the keys are well-textured and offer good feedback. Furthermore the keys are a little elevated, as compared to standard sets, and this allows for rapid typing without fatigue.

Sadly, the touchpad of the DV3005 is a disappointment. Its texture is a little too smooth, leading to imprecise mouse control, and the mouse buttons sometimes don’t register clicks.

The underside of the keyboard sports speakers from Altec Lansing. The speakers themselves are not much to rave about. Sound quality was restrained at best, but behaved admirably at higher volumes, with good clear highs and lows with a bit of under-driving on the mids.

The LCD panel on the DV3005, as the series denotes, is a 13.3 inch panel with a native resolution of 1280x800. Unlike the Dell which sports a bright and brilliant backlit LED panel, HP has chosen to stick to a tried and trusted LCD panel for this model. The screen is adequately bright, and offers excellent levels of contrast and color, but suffers when it comes to viewing angles.

Connectivity-wise, the DV3005 is really loaded. It offers a built-in web camera, a fingerprint reader, HDMI output with HDCP support, VGA output, three standard USB ports, an ExpressCard slot and a 5-in-1 media card reader. There is even an eSATA/USB combo port available.

Other specifications are average. Powered by a 'Santa Rosa'-based Intel T5550 processor, the laptop has an Nvidia 8400M GS graphical subsystem, 2GB of system memory , and a 250GB HDD. As a result, the test scores we got were strictly average at 4181 in the PCMark 06 test and around 1200 for 3DMark06.

In the battery tests we got some weird results. In its first run the battery life maxed out at a little over 2 hours 20 minutes. Subsequent recharges and discharges saw figures of 2 hours 34 minutes, 2 hours 49 minutes and then suddenly 1 hr 58 minutes. The use patterns for each of the test remained the same, with no variance, so we can safely assume the battery can easily last 2½ hours.

One of the things HP has advertised about the DV3000 is its biometric login system. With this it’s possible to use any one of your fingers and log into the system by a simple swipe. While this is hardly a new concept, it’s the first time I've seen it implemented in such a flawless manner. It’s possible to 'enroll' all your fingers, and a simple quick swipe logs you in.

The test piece we received proved to be a mid-level performer. It offers adequate features, good performance and battery life, and is very well-priced at Rs 53,000. If one were to upgrade its features in terms of storage, system memory and choice of CPU, it will have the potential to become a strong 'segment leading' contender. The only downside is its shiny interiors, but if you can overlook that you get a strong laptop that delivers on all fronts.

Source:- Tech2