HP Pavilion DV6 any good?

[SlickmanRickman]

Hey guys, i've been looking for a laptop for some low end gaming like 'Mount & Blade Warband', and to use for some basic online browsing when my desktop gamer rig cant come with me. Its at a 'trade in' store and these are the specs, all the same (to the best of my knowing) with the exeption that it has upgrade to 8 gigs RAM.

Product Specifications HP Pavilion dv6-1375dx Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English) .

Im worried i may be overpaying or that the video card is total crap. I know its integrated, but does this mean i can never upgrade? anyways, the guy said he could let it go for $270.00 $us$. I may be able to talk em down to 250-ish. This is my 1st laptop and from what i hear from the other threds here its hard to get a good gamer pc out of a laptop so my expectations arent high.

Thanks for any help.

[SlickmanRickman]

Also just to quickly add- i think the 'Brightview' may be going out on it or needs to be changed as the display image seems darker than normal. But that could just be a display setting.

[Whir]

Will it play your games? I dunno. Is it worth $270? Yes. Unless the guy has done something to it or something.

[RicheemxX]

First, you don't buy a laptop to "upgrade" most parts memory and HDD aside aren't upgradeable.

Second, just about any laptop will do for basic online stuff.

Third, don't know about that game, but if you just need it for some basic stuff, as long as the battery is in good condition and it has those basic specs with a legit copy of windows its a pretty decent buy at $270. Why they added more RAM is just beyond me but hey not your worry.

[ShyguyXPC]

looked up the game, all I could find on a quick 30 second glance was it needs 128MB video, and DX9 capability.

Which the Intel X4500 is supposedly capable of, but from what I've learned with intel graphics over the years, they tend to leave out critical important parts, in chipsets prior to the X3100 series, they left out Hardware Transform & Lighting which was a DirectX 7 feature, on supposedly DX9 Graphics. And Support for OpenGL as well, so another lacking feature (though OpenGL is competing against Direct3D, part of DX), but still just about every card for 10 years or more has had OpenGL support.


Anyways, this laptop may just barely run the game, but I wouldn't expect it to run it well at any settings. You really need to have a decent "Discreet" graphics solution for most gaming beyond basic flash games or puzzle games like many of PopCap's Games (Bejeweled games, Plants vs Zombies, etc).

When I say Discreet I'm talking AMD/ATI Radeon, Nvidia Geforce.

and even then, not even the most basic GPU's from them may be suitable.

[SlickmanRickman]

Thanks for the input guys.
When i posted this i was in a hurry to pick up a cheap laptop before vacation to avoid withdrawals. But I dont like to buy impulsively, so i opted to wait till after vacation and hear your guys thoughts on this pc. Well im not in so much of a hurry now, and im looking for a decent laptop for around 370ish. If i remember right, most of you like shyguy and Srg are fans of Newegg (any other sites i should know of). I looked around Newegg a little but im not sure how these stack up against eachother without seeing the windows index rating. Any recommendations for laptops or sites?

Im looking for it to do basic online stuff, and run some games on low settings like the one mentiond above- M&B Warband.

Thanks for the help bro's. You guys make this site the awesomeness that it is.

[ShyguyXPC]

maybe check the date before replying... this thread is over 6 months old now

[Big_Daddy]

Yeah but Newegg has this deal on a refurbished:

Newegg.com - Refurbished: HP Pavilion dv6-6188ca Refurbished Notebook AMD A-Series A8-3510MX(1.8GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6750M

HP Pavilion dv6-6188ca Refurbished Notebook AMD A-Series A8-3510MX(1.8GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6750M

I'm just a little squirrelly on the refurbished thing. Plus I hear HP is going out of the lappie bidness

[tony_j15]

You just replied to an 8 month old thread. And HP is in no way, shape, or form going out of the laptop business. CEO Meg Whitman has stated quite emphatically that the PSG (personal systems group) will remain the cornerstone of the company.

[RicheemxX]

Yeah that was an old statement made by the former CEO. They weren't going out of the laptop business they wanted to sale it or spin it off. After they crunched the numbers they figured out it wouldn't be very cost effective. Just recently they merged the PC business with the printing business, so IMO that killed off any further plans to do any sort of spin off.

[Big_Daddy]

It's a really good deal but I'm not not sure about a refurb. I did find this deal at Lenova

IdeaPad Z575 Laptop - 129937U - Gunmetal Gray
AMD A4-3300M APU Processor ( 2.50GHz 2MB )
6480G GPU
6G RAM
$479
Lenovo - Enhance your IdeaPad Z575 Laptop - 129937U - Gunmetal Gray

It doesn't ship until April 10 but it is a sweet deal. The HP seems to have a better video processor though

[Big_Daddy]

Bought this instead for $500

lenovo IdeaPad Z575 (12992PU) AMD A-Series A6-3420M(1.5GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory 500GB HDD AMD Radeon HD 6650M Notebook