Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6000 (dv6614TX)

The dv6000 is the latest offering from Hewlett-Packard's all-singing, all-dancing Pavilion notebook range. As a basic entertainment machine, it performs admirably well, sporting intelligent features and components capped off with an aggressive, showy style. It will suit a wide variety of users -- particularly in the young-and-trendy set -- and should satisfy on almost every level.

Whether you're a fashion aficionado or a regular sloppy Joe, there's no getting past this notebook's arresting design. In a determined effort to appeal to 'da yoof', HP has decked out its Pavilion series with a wardrobe of funky new looks. Often when a vendor attempts this feat, the results are about as cool as your granddad wearing MC Hammer pants (see the Acer Aspire Gemstone 5920G (302G20N) for pictorial evidence). However, we have to admit that HP pulled it off this time around, as the dv6000 is one seriously sexy machine.

With its smooth sleek curvature and trippy wave in-laid pattern, the notebook's exterior certainly sets itself apart from blander rivals. It will doubtlessly look right at home tucked beneath the arm of a graphics designer or college hipster (i.e. people who effortlessly look cooler than everyone else). Beneath its lid, things are no less stylish; sporting a subtly patterned silver body complemented by an elegant black keyboard and blue LED lights. Its appearance is very much tailored for the Y generation, which has the unfortunate side-effect of making older users look a bit sad and desperate. Basically, if you're over 30 and care what people think about you, you'd do well to leave this notebook at home.

If we had to cite one problem with the dv6000's design, it would probably be the bezel that surrounds the 15.1in widescreen display -- it's so glossy that it actually affected our eyesight (then again, maybe we're older than we think). In any event, we're confident that its target audience will be more than happy with the overall aesthetic. Well done, designing chaps.

As with the other Pavilion lappies we've looked at, the dv6000 runs on the latest Intel Centrino Duo platform, using an Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2GHz CPU. There is also 2GB of DDR2 RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS graphics chip. Rounding out the feature set is a pair of beefy Altec Lansing speakers, a LightScribe DVD re-writer, as well as HP's QuickPlay software for media playback. This makes the dv6000 a tasty option for multimedia enthusiasts; a fact supported by the in-built webcam and included HDMI port.

We were however, a touch disappointed by the dv6000's display. While its native resolution of 1280x800 will get the job done admirably enough, we found the viewing angles to be less than ideal, while the screen's glossy surface reflects badly under direct lighting. On the plus side, the screen is naturally quite bright and colours appear sharp and vibrant.

When it came to performance, the dv6000 proves to be nearly as slick as it looks. In WorldBench 6, it received an overall score of 81, which is certainly nothing to sniff at; even in this unseasonably chilly weather. It should confidentially get by in all but the most graphically intensive situations, whereas everyday use, such as Internet use and business applications, will be an absolute breeze. In 3DMark06, which assesses a notebook's gaming capabilities, the dv6000 scored a slightly underwhelming 1324. While this isn't an awful score for an all-purpose notebook, the latest DirectX 10 behemoths -- such as Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 -- are unlikely to be playable. If its score of 11,621 in 3DMark 2001 is anything to go by, older games should run like silk however.

The dv6000 also performed reasonably well in our battery test. By looping a DVD, which uses the speakers and the optical drive for maximum drain, we managed to run down the battery in 102 minutes -- a fairly good result. (Normal usage will keep the notebook going for longer.)