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My New Laptop
Loading ...I was contemplating on buying a new laptop for the past few months due to productivity issues. I was using a Dell Inspiron 8500 for the past 2 years for work as well as home utilities. I loved the Inspiron 8500 for its robust built, great performance, widescreen display and the speaker sound quality, but it lacked several essentials (like mine didn’t have WiFi). It was also getting quite slow with development apps like .NET, SAP BO and SQL Server installed. Moreover the Inspiron 8500, kind of, became obsolete in today’s world of Core Duo’s. So I decide to get myself a new piece of gear.
For the past few weeks I searched around for the most suitable and economical laptop models in the market. My main requirements were a widescreen display (15.4″), WiFi ability, a Core Duo (not Core Solo) processor, substantial amount of memory (512MB+) and a large disk drive (60GB+). The main contenders I was looking at were Dell, HP/Compaq and IBM/Lenovo. Although my dream machine would have been an Alienware or a Sony VAIO, but these were either unavailable or too expensive for me. The IBM/Lenovo laptop’s are quite durable but I’m not a huge fan of their product design, which looks so retro. After much consideration and research over the internet, and calling/meeting with a couple of a laptop dealers, I narrowed down my selection to three models: Dell Inspiron 6400, HP Pavilion DV6114 and the Toshiba Tecra A8.
Dell only has online direct ordering which means that I couldn’t test-drive the lappy beforehand. But Dell gave much diverse options to customize the laptop with their online ordering process. The Dell model was well within my budget but I was unsure of its design quality. Also, I heard and read several stories about the poor personal customer service offered by Dell. Next up, I had a look at the Toshiba model at a dealers location and found it to be very well designed, quite durable and performance-oriented. The following day I called up a couple of HP dealers and went over to one to have a peak at the DV6114. I also browsed the Pavilion DV6000 series review at CNET and Laptop Magazine. The DV6114 also happened to be the Most Popular Laptop at NotebookReview.com (as of now).
At the showroom, my first impression with its look & feel was that its a “digital fashion statement”. The HP Pavilion DV6114 offered all that I was looking for and much more, almost at the same price as that of a Dell Inspiron 6400. I took a quick test-drive on the laptop and placed an order right there and then. One thing that I noticed was that the Dell Inspiron 6400 had a Core Duo T2300 processor while the HP Pavilion DV6114TX (TX is Intel, ZX is AMD) has a Core Duo T2050 (without IVT), which meant a slightly lower frequency, slightly lower FSB and no virtualization support for the Pavilion model. Regardless it was a negligible difference. But I was just blown away by the design quality and performance attributes offered by this Pavilion model which was launched just about 3-4 months back. And I could also count on HP customer service over the Dell customer service. And that same evening, last week, I was a happy & proud owner of a new HP Pavilion DV6114.
The HP Pavilion DV6114 has a stylish chassis draped with the unique HP Imprint Finish Wave pattern (based on a technique used by car manufacturers for interior design). The subtle, wavy lines are inspired by Japanese rock gardens, and the piano-black finish captures your attention (as well as fingerprints and smudges).
It exhibits a 15.4″ widescreen with BrightView technology. Under the hood is an Intel Core Duo Processor (1.66 GHz), Intel 945GM Chipset, 2 MB L2 Cache / 533 MHz FSB, 512 MB PC2-4200 (533 MHz) DDR2 RAM, 80 GB Serial ATA hard-disk (150 MB/ Sec @5400 RPM) and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950. Other nifties include an 8x SuperMulti Double Layer (8.5 GB) DVD +RW/ +R Writer, integrated Bluetooth, integrated Intel Pro/Wireless 3945ABG WiFi, integrated Modem and an integrated 1.3 megapixel WebCam. It has Altec Lansing Stereo Speakers and a very useful 5-In-1 Digital Media Reader integrated. The HP Pavilion DV6114 is powered by the Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE) and it is Windows Vista capable. A small remote control is used to drive the TV/Tivo-like MCE.
One week after the purchase and most of the software essentials loaded, I’m quite satisfied with the performance and durability of the laptop. I will highly recommend to anyone looking for a decent laptop for home or home-office use. I’ll load-test the laptop in the coming weeks and post more details later.
By the way, this is my first post using w.bloggar - a free offline blogging client.
Posted under Featured Articles, Gadgets and Gizmos, Personal, Technology | Posted on Sun, 22nd Oct 2006 5:12 pm
hi pal! nice review tho.. i wanted to get a notebook for animation purpose so which one would you recomment dv6114 or dv 2046 … how much did it cost you around?? iam basically looking for a notebook between 50-60 K INR ( Rs)
Hi Rahul,
Thanks for your comment!
The HP Pavillion dv6114 costed me under 60k (INR). I’ll highly recommend this model to you! However, if you plan to do mid/high-end 3D animation then I would suggest that you upgrade the memory to 1GB for optimum performance under graphics-intensive usage. The laptop comes with 512MB RAM but most vendors can upgrade it to 1GB for 3-4k at the time of purchase. Infact I plan to upgrade the RAM after a couple of months.
You can also look at Dell Inspiron 9400 (with a 17″ widescreen).
Hope it helps! Do share with us which model you eventually decided to buy.
Cheers
Ashutosh
Thanx Ashtosh! i’ll definately go in for dv6114 then but can you tell is it easy to carry along..coz i’ll be mostly on the move. it it has a 15″ screen and it a bit heavier than 2000 model..some more light on this please… and yes does dv6114 comes with media center edition ?
and inspiron i think its way too bulkier and not that good looking…
Hi Rahul,
dv6114 weighs around 6.5 lbs (= 3 kgs). I find it quite alright to carry.
dv6114 does come with Win XP MCE version 2002 (SP2) and a small remote control. With XP MCE you can watch and record live TV (much like TiVO), play DVDs, listen to music, watch digital videos, and run photo slide shows.
By the way, since you might care about graphics & visual details I must mention that my dv6114 came with the NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400 graphics adapter with 256MB graphics memory (128MB DDR2 dedicated VRAM plus an additional 128MB shared with system memory). I read that there are newer Core 2 Duo based dv6000 series laptop’s in the US with better performance, but it will take some time for them to arrive in India for sure. I reckon, the only Core 2 Duo based laptop range offered in India is by Toshiba.
One minor shortfall you might encounter if you are off-AC power a lot is that the battery life of the dv6000 series laptops is only about 2.5 hours which is not as much as compared to other models.
Hope it help!
hi
i am planning to buy dv 6114 this december ,and also i am person who takes the maximum from a pc. can u tell me about the performance of dv 6114 like its speed ,3d benchmarks on games like doom3 ,far cry etc . And r u satisfied with it .
do reply
bye
Hi Karan,
In terms of performance dv6114 is a decent machine. I won’t call it an absolute power house. I needed a laptop for mainstream computing needs like software programming, database development etc. and dv6114 performs very well for those tasks. The CPU load and memory load is stable even with multiple apps running. I’m not much of a gamer myself so I can’t say much about it, but I’m very sure the Core Duo processor and 512MB of RAM adds zest to even those resource hungry apps like 3D games and animation/movie-making digital studios. For a detailed review and various benchmarks, checkout the links to the dv6000 series reviews I’ve posted in my main article.
I’d say that dv6114 offers great value for money and I’m quite happy with it!
Hi Ashotosh
I too have done some research on the home / office purpose notebooks from 50 to 60 k range like you. Eventually i also shortlisted two PCs 1) Dell Inspiron 6400 and 2) Hp Pavilion DV 6114TX.The only problem with Dell is their poor customer support after sale.
As far as HP Pavilion is concerned, I agree with u that it has got better looks and build quality than Dell. Since u started using your Pavilion, pl. tell me abt the following
1) They say that the optional brightview screen is cheaper and not good for eyes and very reflective.
2) Even with XP Media center u need a TV tuner for watching / recoding TV programs. This is also possible with XP home and XP pro. Then wat’s th benefit of Media center.
3) How is the sound quality and volume level with Altec lancing speakers.
4) Do u really see a good use for inbuilt webcam and lightscribe drive.
5) Is it true that if u purchase thru a HP employee you will get ~ 5k less than the showroom price.
I am yet to decide between Dell and HP. Pl. give your ideas.
Hi,
I use a simular HP since the last week and agree: excellent.
But: I was - until now - not able to config the integrated mirco in a way that it works probably. The sound via CD or DVD is ok to me. But not the microphone. Maybe its a question of drivers but i got the latest of it by the HP-Homepage.
The mirco is realy silent, as if its without the +20db-Boost. No enhanced settings available. Any idears?
hey dude. lovely review. can i know where u bought the dv6114tx from. i am in Chennai, India and i want to buy one. I want the higher end model with the 1gb ram and 100gb hdd. How much did it cost? pls reply to my email id, r.arunsundar@gmail.com
Vijay:
Thanks for dropping in. On your queries:
1. BrightView is actually anti-reflective (more info @ http://www.screentekinc.com/hp-compaq-brightview-lcd-screens.shtml). Although just like any other computer/laptop, if you spend 3 or more continous hours infront of the LCD then your eyes will take a toll
2. XP MCE is nothing but XP Pro with added Audio/Video bits. I reckon the key benefit of Media Centre is that it has all the required software & drivers pre-installed to turn your PC into an interactive entertainment device (more info @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Media_Center_Edition). Yes you’ll need a TV Tuner with MCE to make use of the TV part. BTW, HP is running a promo: 50% off on Hauppage TV Tuner — http://h50043.www5.hp.com/ENP5/Public/Content.aspx?contentID=20072&portalID=372&pageID=1
3. The sound quality is really crisp and extremely good, but the in-built speakers volume range is a bit lower. For a laptop its alright, since you can always plugin a headphone or external amp.
4. I haven’t used the Lightscribe drive yet. When I will, I’ll post a note here. The inbuilt webcam is quite useful for video chat’s. I use it often with Skype and Yahoo. The webcam quality at 1.3MP is not all that bad.
5. I won’t be able to say much about discount’s etc. I bought my gear from a retail outlet and got a good price.
Olaf:
I’ll give the microphone a try. I tried an external mic and it worked. I’ll play around with the internal mic and let you know if it works for me. I’m sure it must be some setting that you are overlooking (maybe mute
Arun:
dv6114 costed me under 60k. With 1gb RAM and 100gb HDD it might cost 6-7k or so more.
Like you i’ve been scouring the web and malls in Chennai to buy my ideal laptop
. Earlier, as job perquisties, I had used Compaq, then an IBM and an Acer. My requirements are similar to yours.
I finally decided on Presario V6107TU (which currently costs 49k in the competetive market) till I saw your review. I just queried HP for a detailed techspec (you have provided lotsa info, just want some more
) on DV6114. I guess I’ll make the comparison later tonight and pick up my book tomorrow.
Will keep you updated.
btw, does MCE include IIS ? And since I understand that you are a programmer/coder does it add any value towards application development ?
Hi DontheCat! Thanks for your reply.
XP MCE is just a fork of XP Pro (w/ SP2). It has all that XP Pro has and a bit more. And yes, XP MCE has IIS 5.1. It’s quite essential for web application development with technologies like ASP.NET and PHP.
Good luck!
Hi Ashutosh
Thanks a lot for nice replies with many links.
I haven’t seen any blog with such a beautiful review abt a laptop product with many gud quality images. Wonderful making.
I have ordered my dv6114TX couple of days back.
Can u tell me how to claim the free offers frm HP.
Oops ! I wasn’t asking about IIS. I am a php programmer and currently use IIS with XP for testing on my local server.
I was asking if you found MCE to be of any value-add when used with webdev applications as compared to Win XP Pro.
Just a thot process… You should have the Feeds link more prominently. Took me a while to locate it. And for some strange reason, refuses to be added to my Live.com page automagically.
Hi Vijay! I’m glad you liked this review (of sorts)! Nice to hear that you’ll also be a proud owner of the dv6114
For all the latest HP promotions on home/home-office laptops you can checkout their promo page: http://h50043.www5.hp.com/ENP5/Public/Promotion/Listing.aspx?portalID=372&promViewType=PC&id=147
You’ll find details on how to redeem the offers on the respective offer details page. Good luck!
I noticed that your Feed URL points to
“feed:http://www.nilkanth.com/feed/”. Something wrong with the syntax there.
I use Outlook 2007 beta and when I clicked the link the feed was added to the inbuilt reader. But I got an error msg saying URL cannot be resolved.
I tried without the feed: prefix and I’m able to access through my default reader - ActiveRefresh.
I am very much impressed with the comments .I am taking laptop for both programming & chatting & entertainment(better to say for all purposes)Could u please let me know with Windows MCE will it create any problems in installing Oracle,Java/J2EE,C,C++,VB,VC++ etc softwares and working/programming in them…..Have u find any benefit with NVDIA Graphics Card than normal…
Hi Asuthosh Pls reply to my comments.One more thing whic id better 2046/6114.Can I get all the features of XP Professional in Media Center Edition
Hey Ashutosh,
Man you have put great stuff here. Couldn’t get more information from anywhere. I wanna buy a laptop soon but i cant decide.
Basically i need hard drive and good graphics( thts ram. speed everything)
i’ve seen the hp dv6114 n hp dv2117 notebooks n both seen fine. can u tell me will they be able to take the load of somewhat hard games n run them smoothly. do u know if they have these notebooks with Core 2 duo processors instead of dual core. and can u tell me what all is expandable in dv6114 because i’ll like to take it to the level of dv2117. its mainly because dv2117 is about 68k n m getting dv2117 for around 57k.
m really concerned bout all this stuff because it is a big investment for me n my dad won’t buy me a pc for 4 years. i stay in delhi btw if that helps.
thnx man..
Hi DontheCat,
The correct RSS feed URL is http://www.nilkanth.com/feed/
It should be fixed in the new design (due in the next 7-10 days).
Hi Karthik,
Like I mentioned before Windows XP MCE is based on XP Pro, so its as compatible with software & hardware as XP itself.
I haven’t done much of graphics intensive work on the lappy as yet, but being a indie short film maker, I’ll try my hands on Windows Movie Maker and see how the NVIDIA GeForce affects the process.
Hi Dhruv,
Thanks for your comment.
For any laptop to fare well in the graphics stream, I highly recommend going for a Core Duo (or Core Duo 2), but as of October 2006 only Toshiba had Core Duo 2 laptops in the Indian market. And well just a few days back Intel has released plans for Quad Core chips starting early 2007 ( http://www.google.com/search?q=intel+core+quad ). If productivity scores over mobility for your daily computing needs then I also recommend upgrading the system RAM to atleast 1GB, and buy a large space hard-drive (like a 100GB one).
The Pavilion dv6114tx comes in a Core Duo 2 model as well, but from what I could find at the time of buying, its only available in the US and Europe. Maybe you can check with HP India or HP dealers about its availability.
hey thnx man…
i called up hp n they said that Core Duo and Core 2 Duo have no difference. infact its just a marketing strategy . the guy said that it was same.
its kinda hard to take this but don’t know if it is true.
i’ll ask the dealer about this and ask him to put core2duo (if its possible..i mean i’m confused) anyway.
ram is 1gb. all this for dv2117tx…it has this nvidia card with 256mb dedicated memory. n yes hard drive is 100 gb .
btw how do u find the battery.
well i think i’ll get the machine on this friday.
ne think that i should check before buying the notebook?
thnx
Hi Ashutosh,
I have gone thru all your feedbacks and comments and I appreciate your depth of knowledge..
I was using Acer 2355LC for past one year and bought a new hp pavilion 6114 tx day before yesterday !
What I would like to know from you is, Did you get any CDs along wiht your laptop?
I bought it through a lcala dealer in my place and it was a sealed pack..
But I could not find any CDs inside the pack, I have asked my dealer to cross check it..
Also can you please explain me about the “Recocery DISC with no CDs” feature?
Regards,
Subash.
Hi Dhruv,
Core Duo, Core Duo 2 and (now) Core Quad are all very different in terms of performance attributes. If HP guys are telling you that there’s no difference between Duo and Duo2 then ask then to bundle a Duo2 for your laptop at the same price
Like I said before, from what I know, Duo2 for laptops has not even arrived in India (except for one Toshiba model).
The battery lifetime for the dv6114tx is around 3 hours max. I’m not extremely mobile with the laptop so it works out for me.
Rest of your config looks great buddy! Good luck!
Hi Subash,
I got one CD (the recovery disk and drivers backup) with the pack. The CD was in the flip paper pouch with the manual. It should have been supplied to you as well.
There’s also a recovery without CD feature, where the recovery drivers are loaded onto your harddisk itself. On the dv6114, the D drive is designated for system recovery files, so you can rollback to the factory setup in case of any trouble. But its always good to have a recovery CD. Look for it, talk to your vendor or you can call HP (I think they have the facility to send you a free recovery disk).
Good luck!
Hi dhruv
This is vijay.
Core 2 Duo is the next generation processor from Intel. They say it is the award winning world’s best mobile processor. It is yet to arrive in India.
Compared to core Duo core 2 duo will be upto 12% faster. But expensive.
Supports 64 bit architecture and windows Vista OS.
Want more info ? Check http://www.intel.com/core2duo
hey
i waqs watching some tech show on tv n they said that even if your computer is vista capable. it may not run some vista programs
is that true?
hey,
One of my cousins bought a dv2000 series laptop with 80GB hard disk. What irked me in that laptop was that there were only 2 partitions, C drive for 80 GB and the rest on D drive which had the backed up factory setting. If for any reason one wants to format C drive, first his whole data is gone and secondly its totally inconvenient.
I am planning to buy hp 6114tx. What I want to know is that is there any option that I opt for 2 partitions (apart form the backed up partition)? The main reason is that I want to install linux on my machine too. Secondly, does the laptop come with the windows OS installation CD, in case I need to reformat and reinstall it.
thanks
correction on the previous post…
…there were only 2 partitions, C drive for 70 GB and the rest on D drive which had the backed up factory setting.
Hi all
I bought an HP dv6114tx about a month back.after a great deal of market research before buying this piece. many have given the pros of this piece so let me give you some drawbacks.
But still its a good machine for the price.
Pros:
1. Affordable
2. Good Design / Stylish
3. Very useful remote
4. DVD writer (upto 8.5 GB dual layer DVDs)
5. Very good sound quality when hooked to my Music System
6. Nvedia Gforce 7 can play almost any game in full
resolution. i tried Quake 4 and it runs good
7. Touch sensetine control
8. i got a Free tv tuner for buy before 31/10/06 (sorry date passed for new customers)
Cons
1. The screen has a very low viewing angle, i need to audgest my screen every time i change position, i think 14″ screen of 2117 is enough
2. the induilt speakers have goog volume level for personal listning but the bass is almost absent also the voice distorts at full volume (Toshiba Cosmo or something has herman kardon speakers and has good sound quality)
3. I web cam is of no use to me as i am not into chat,
4. Battery life is only 2-2.5 hrs
5. The laptop is too heavy (2.6 Kgs) its a pain carrying it
6. Xp media center and quick play (U can play DVD and music without booting windows) is used sparingly as its difficult to multitask with it runing.
Still its a very good system and i compared it with almost every laptop available in india. U can gat a great deal if u can get one from US i think it costs 850-1000 $ there.
Yes dhruv, there are backward compatibility issues with Windows Vista, basically due to its massive internal architecture and UI redesign.
You can read more on it @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsvista/reference/appcompat/default.aspx
Also insightful is the Windows Vista Software Compatibility List @ http://tinyurl.com/f5arg (iexbeta.com)
Harshit, you are absolutely right. Most new laptops come with only 2 factory-setup partitions: C: drive (for user storage) and D: drive (for system recovery storage). The D: partition is inaccesible by the user.
But who said you can’t repartition your C: drive without losing any data and split in into smaller partition(s)! You can search for “partition managers” on Google. I would recommend you also checkout GParted ( http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ ) which is an open source free alternative and supports fat16/fat32/ntfs partitions.
Happy dual-booting
Hi i am Vinay from Delhi
i recently purchased the hp dv2117tx
i am sure it came with a remote control
but couldnt locate it
plz help
Hi,
Thnx for the useful information about hp 6114tx…
I m planning to purchase a laptop and after a much market review i considered lenevo, toshiba A100-P543 and HP 2117..
but i have not got much info abt 6114tx..
can u pliz let me know the comparision of 6114 and 2117… pliz tell me price level.. retailer told me abt 2117 is costing 62,500/-
regards,
Dhan
Hi Ashutosh,
I went through the specs of dv6114tx. Now its being offered with Intel T2050 which has a 533Mhz FSB. The interesting thing is that the 512MB RAM module that comes along has a clock speed of 667MHz !!!!!! Now what is this ?? !!
Its pretty pbvious that no performance increase can be achieved by using a RAM which is faster than the processor FSB, only a loss of performance can occur due to the resulting async operation. Also the consumer is made to spend more bucks for no use!
What is your opinion? Did you also got it with 667MHz RAM? And did you underclock the RAM or left it as it is?
hey i finally bought the hp dv 2117tx notebook…well for the first day it rocked…lets c how it score over some period of time.
well ne way m more than satisfied. but instead of the 256mb dedicated memory as told earliar i just got 128 m. but a friend of mine told me that it wont make much of a difference as there is 1 gb ram.
is he true.
ne way i think both dv 6114 n dv 2117 are great machines.
One more thing is bothering me. On some sites, specially Cnet reviews I came accross the statements that “the glossy screen can be reflective sometimes”. Did you find this problem? I work all the time in front of a computer and glare could be a big problem to me.
Btw am a student and am pretty much inclied to buy this notebook.
Aditya, I have the 6114tx laptop as well, although it went to repair for some problems .. they took 10 days to find the problem, another 10 days just to find out that they would not be able to FIX the problem and declared it DEAD. Now, I am still waiting to get a replacement most prolly I will be getting it tomorrow.
I am a student too and I use the PC a lot. As the screen being glossy and reflective as mentioned on CNET. Its actually about if u have a light source right on the oposite of the screen and then its get reflected.. limiting the visibility. Like when your monitor is directly facing a window or sth. As for the eyes, the monitor is not a pain at all. No glare as such.
As for the partition thing, when I tried it on my laptop. It screwed the QuickPlay partition and it never worked there after (it would work only from within windows, not directly when the machine was shut). And the partition changes were unsuccessful.
Has anyone done a successful partition change on this machine?
Hey thanx Amit !
Atleast this screen thing is resolved. But what about RAM being of higher speed then the FSB? Do you have any idea?
Hi
I am also planning to buy 6114. But I have dv5118 also in my mind
http://shopping.rediff.com/shop/productdisplay.jsp?prrfnbr=10111014&source=browse&frompg=Notebook%20Computers
Ashutosh,
The vga memory is mentined as 256 MB. You wrote that only 128MB is dedicated and rest 128 is shared..
Can you please confirm this.
Hi Aditya,
The RAM has a higher FSB than that of the Processor.. but you dont have to underclock it for better perfermance, that is not a problem at all. I myself have added another 512MB of RAM to the 512 already provided with 6114tx, making a total of 1g. The performance is great. I am a develeoper as well, so I do have apache, mysql, zend, dreamweaver running most of the time and it has been working fine uptil now.
Actually I was thinking of adding one more GB. So thought I’ll add the slower 533MHz one, as its cheaper and adding a 667MHz won’t give me any pperformance gains as the bottleneck is the FSB.
Anyway, does anyone know if this model comes with free express vista upgrade?
@Ashutosh B
dv6114tx has nVidia 7400 Go which has 128MB dedicated memory and can borrow 128 MB more from the main memory making a total of 256MB
About the dv5118, am not sure.
I dont think it has any FREE EXPRESS VISTA upgrade. It just comes with a Media Center …
HP DV 6114 tx its best laptop with tremendous features
bluetooth ,wirless, webcam
and gaming with nvdia grpahics is also very good with a deidcated meemory of 256 MB
hai ashuthosh i hav purchased HPdv6114tx. It has windows media centre OS. BUT i want to work on the ASP.NET , the problem is ASP.NET runs only in the windows XP Professional. When i tried to install the XP it is giving the key u entered is wrong msg, i tried around 10 other than the key given with the CD. I did the partition of the memory using the partition magic 8.0 version. please suggest me to install the Windows XP profession on my laptop..
Hi Raghavendra,
Windows Media Centre is just an extended version of Windows XP Professional. It has IIS 5.1 web server which will enable you to develop and stage web apps (in ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, Ruby etc.). You can look for IIS under Administrative Tools.
Hope it helps!
I doubt if XP pro is an extrended version of XP MC. Reason? simply becaus the former is costlier.
Hi Aditya,
The Windows XP Media Center Edition page on Wikipedia says:
“Although Media Center is based on Windows XP Professional, Microsoft has disabled its ability to join an Active Directory domain post install. This effectively precludes the use of Media Center in a corporate environment. Media Center still retains most other Windows XP Pro-specific features, such as Remote Desktop and the Encrypting File System.”
So it may not precisely be an extension of Windows XP Pro but it includes pretty much everything (and IIS) that XP Pro has.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP_Media_Center_Edition (3rd para)
Thanks for enlightening me
Hi thanx ashutosh for sharing ur tremendous knowledge
i’ll be buying 2117 next week, but plz help me wit the PARTITION part(no partition really haunts me)
can u plz resolve this issue
Thnx in advance sir
hi thanx Mr. ashutosh for sharing ur trememndous knowledge here with us
i am planning to buy hp dv 2117 next week (india), but i have one query about the PARTITION thing , can it be done or not
and if possible , which is the safest way (without damaging the quickplay)
thanks in advance sir !!
aha! The pirce of dv6114tx went down! Its now only Rs56,990. Good 4 me
.
And yes, the PC costs around 6K cheaper if u get it thru someone who works in HP.
Gud blog got lot of info here…
i have decided to buy dv2117tx. if somebody owns it here… Just wanted to know how does it perform.
how much did it cost…i was told its around 60K…including taxes.
excellent review–i am just gng and buying this machine—thankx man–tc..
Hi buddy, thanks for all ur valuable update. I am planning to buy this machine myself but just have a doubt about the PARTITION thing, people say it damages the QuickPlay.
But I wanna use it too and have the partioning also. They say that I can get the partioning done by the HP people themselves but aftter that some of the drivers stop working. Please advise me on this.
thanks a ton in advance.
hey i am too confused between the dv 6114 and the sony vaio vgn c15 can someone help me out and yeah i am going to go my course of maya which includes graphocs and movie making ok
hi,
Can anyone say me whats the backup time for 6114 and 2117. And is the cost 56,900/- of 6114 including taxtes or without taxes?
Please do reply me as i have to decide between 2117 and 6114 and have to purchase within 2-3 days.
thanks in advance,
Dhan
What’s latest update in DV6114tx…
What about the 1GB ram, that casts?
peace,
kd
Hi guys i just changed my mind, i’ll buy a desktop PC
if anyone of u doesnt want portability and want better speed go for m7500 or m7300 PCs from HP
Hi all,
It’s really good and informative blog. Thanx Asutosh for all the info. I work at HP and Latest price that HP offers to its employees is around 50000. With carry case and tax I will be getting it at 55,129Rs.. I have decided to add another 1 GB RAM as I work with Vmware and many OS. Now my concern is about the RAM clock speed. Will 533Mhz RAM fit in this system? I will be installing Linux on it i,t multipartition it. I have ordered it now lets wait and watch it. i will be doing all kind of research on this laptop with OS, partition and rest of the performance. i will keep updated yo all about the result.
Dear Sir/Madam
I have altec speakers which are currently out of order so can you please suggest me from where i can get them repaired.
Thanks
Hi I am planning to get HP Pavillion dv 6114tx,in second week of Dec.Will upgrade the system to 1 GB RAM & 100GB drive(with a partition into 5 drives 20*5).Just wanted to know its utility to me,as I am not a hard core programmer,but working on Statistical packages,SPSS,SAS,SQL,MINTAB,MATLAB…apart from that I am not very sure of the price that the dealer is quoting.He said that the system would cost me around67k including the upgradation(1gb Ram & 100gb drive).Secondly,I am not very sure regarding the Partition issue…
Hi all
I have this Laptop and did a partition on C drive using Acronis disk director without any problems. HP quick play works as usual.
Currently I face the following issues
1) Battery life is a poor 1.5 hrs.
2) When I connect my Transcend T.sonic 610 Mp3 player in any of the 3 given USB ports, it is not detected. It gets detected for the first time after I install the driver CD which is needed only for Win 98,.though mine is XP OS. If I pulg out and insert he device again it doesn’t get recognised. So again I have to uninstall and reinstall the same driver.
Pl. give me ideas to solve these problems.
Hi Ashutosh,
I would like to upgrade the Memory to 1GB by adding another 512MB RAM..
Currently it is 512MB DDR2 with 738Mhz..I checked with my dealer and he said he can provide a Transcend 512MB DDR2 with 667Mhs..Will it be suitable for my laptop..
If you can provide the correct specification and model for 512MB RAM DDR2, it would be helpful for me..
Thanks,
Subash Rajan.
Hi ashutosh,
Thanks, I have installed IIS, but i havnt run ASP.NET programs on that, i will try for that. But still can we install two OS in that notebook. Because in the VS CD, help me file it is told that the ASP.NET file runs in the XP professional only, all other C#, VB files will run succesfully.
Hi friends,
I was just going through the comments on dv 6114 & dv 2117 models of HP, those who want to upgrade the RAM or HDD why don’t they go for DV5118 tx I am using this notebook since June 2006 it has T2300 processor (1.66 Ghz with 667 FSB) it comes with 1 GB of RAM (667 FSB), 100 GB SATA & even PCMCIA Type II & III slot which is missing in both these machines( but u can get usb data cards from reliance), rest this notebook is going great. Grab it if u can, as this model is now discontinued.
Hi Vijay ,
3 days back i got dv6114tx . Its good but i’m not very much satisfied with its performance . I’m also facing the same problem ..
1. Its recognises my MOTO V3 Razr first time … after clsoing the folder .. i’ve to again insert it in USB port or some time to istall mobile software .. its very problematic …:-(..
2. Battery backup is really very poor .. 1.5 hrs only .
3. Also i’ve to wait 6-7 weeks for getting the free TV tuner card …:-(
Hi Ashutosh,
Can u pls suggest anything for fixing this USB problem … like its not plug n play type .. i’ve to put again n again USB devices .. Can u tell the reason .. i’ve installed any thirdparty s/w yet ..its in factory condition ….
Hi Vivek,
I haven’t encountered the USB problem with any devices as yet. I use the USB interface for two of my PnP mobile devices: a Motorola A1000 and a Palm Treo 600; and both work well. I never had the need to reinstall the device drivers or update anything.
I suggest that you call/mail HP as well as Motorola tech support for compatibility information between the two and the V3 Razr PnP support. Although I don’t see any possibility for a major technical snag but I’ll see if I can find any information on it. Checkback a little later buddy.
And yes, the battery life does suck. Mine lasts for around 2-2.5 hours at max with a full recharge. The battery life situation is becuase of the fact that the dv6114 and most other standard laptops has a 6-cell battery pack. The battery pack can be upgraded to a 9-cell one though for a slightly better power backup. I’m often connected to an AC outlet so the battery life doesn’t bother me much, but if you are on the move a lot then the 9-cell pack is a great addon. All laptops have this provision, so nothing special here
Moreover, you can make some simple tweaks to conserve battery power when disconnected from AC power, like, disabling the touchpad (if you can use a mouse) with the button on top of the touchpad, disabling Bluetooth & WiFi with the toggle on the left hand side under the touchpad, turning the display brightness down with the [fn] plus [f7] / [f8] keys etc.
Cheers
Hi Raghavendra,
You can surely partition your hard-drive (without losing any existing data), and then install another OS on the second partition. This will give you a dual boot option.
Hope it helps!
Hi Binkesh,
Yeah I agree DV5118 tx is better. But I wanted a beter graphics card and DV5118 tx has a nVidia 7200 go, which is not as good as 7400 go. Also, RAM can be upgraded any time you want. Regarding HDD, I wanted around 120GB, but now it seems I’ll have to use the DVD writer
. About upgrading the HDD, am not sure, because won’t I have to throw away the 80GB and buy a new one? seems quite costly!!
Also I mentioned the speed mismatch between RAM and FSB problem here. So I had contacted the HP coustomer care, and contrary to my expectations, the response sucked!! Some 5 or 6 mails were exchanged between me and the support engineers, and they were not even able to understand my problem. Half the time I was shuffled between different engineers and once an engineer said that my question was wrong as the processor of dv6114tx has a 667MHz FSB!! And he was not ready to believe that it has a 533MHz FSB even when I sent him the link to the HP page saying the same!!RIDICUOLOUS!!
Either all engineers there are stupid or maybe my bad luck!!
Dear Aditya I think u are mistaken some where as DV 5118 tx is having nVIDIA 7400 with 512 MB RAM. i have rechecked in my machine
Hi Ashutosh,
I have tried partitioning my HDD on my previous dv6114tx using partitioning magic which gave a fatal error and then my quickplay stopped working (not that it really matters).
Then the laptop later crashed because of some motherboard issues, they replaced the motherboard. It dint work and finally, I got the laptop replaced after a lot f wait.
I want to know if you have actually tried partitioning and if you did, which utility did you use to do the partition.
Thanks
Yep…made a mistake. I confused it with dv2100. But I can’t find this notebook at the HP website. Looks like they have discontinued it. Is it an old model? or maybe its too new like the dv9010tx.
Actually I wanted to buy dv9010tx, its amazing. But its not yet in stock in Bangalore or Delhi
I saw dv5118 tx ’s config. It looks equal to dv2100 except the graphics card and 14inch screen. Anyway, the point is dv6114tx looks better because of imprint finish and the zen design. And its a bit cheaper. Maybe I would have bought dv5118tx if I would have seen it on the HP’s site!
can i add nvidia 7400 gfx card later to hp dv2046TU??
plz reply
OH boi! am in luv with my notebook now….it looks so cool…
But am tired of cleaning it !!!! It luvs to catch dust 
Hi.. i also luv my notebook .. but its screen shines a lot .. needs much adjustment for setting correct viewing angle … magic of BRIGHTVIEW !!!
Hi Ashutosh,
In my dv6114tx, it only tells the perecentage of battery left, and not the time as in other laptops. Is it in only mine or every dv6114tx?
Hi, anybdy got the free TV tuner card ? Me, still waiting for it ..
Hi,
Today only i came to know that DV6114 does not have L2 cache memory of 2 MB, which all other laptops have…. Cache memory is must for performance ..
Hi
I wanted to buy a 12″ notebook. Any suggestions? I am down to Compaq B1914 and Dell XPSM1210.
Hi aditya / vivek & VJ
My answers to some of the queries above
yes. this laptop shows only % of battery capacity. But U can get free download & install many utilities like laptop battery monitor etc which can estimate the remaining time also.
dv 6114TX has 2 MB of L2 cache memory.
VJ, i wud recommend u Dell XPS M1210 12 ” ultraportable than a compaq
Hi!!!!!!
i got dv6114TX a couple of weeks ago…. i want to know how to get the display on TV thru S-video out….. pls tell how to configure for that….. i bought an S-video cable(4 pin) for that…..
hey Ashutosh,
Ur research sounds too in-depth and exciting, thats a great job which i wanted to appreciate.
Ok, m planning to buy dv 6114tx, but hey did u check dv2117tx ? well, as i check this model also falls at par with the 6114. The 2117tx has got 1 Gb RAm n 100GB hard disk space, which probably no model offers in the 58-62K range. Any feedbacks for it?
Hi Ravi ,
You are quite right , but this model’s screen size is 14.1″ and does not have Nvidia garphics card . Moreover OS is windows XP Home(Not XP Media center Edition 2005) ..
So i think its better to go for DV6114tx … RAM can be upgraded any time …
Guys, I hate to rain on your parade, but have any of you folks tried using the s-video output for seeing you videos on a regular TV? If you did, you’ll find that IT DOESN’T WORK, in fact the poorly tested NVIDIA 6150 will drive a signal to the TV that will eventually damage the TV (even if you explicitly set the NVIDIA settings to NTSC/M (for US/Canada) and low 640×480 resolution. HP is trying to cover-up a recall here. What a shame, given what a good machine (overall) it could have been. BTW the AMD version
sporting dual core Turion processors will blow the Intel based version away due to the 1.6 GHz Hypertransport bus (same bus that Cray and SUN microsystems supercomputers use) used on AMD designs; this bus is 3 to 4 times faster than Intel’s FSB 667Mhz (i.e. full duplex 6.4 GigaBytes/s compared to 2.6 Gb/s HALF-Duplex for FSB). If you plan to use the system for graphics processing or games, the AMD version is better. If you want the system to be able to run slow and slugglish VISTA, then again, AMD’s true 64 bit architecture will give some investment protection if/when you upgrade to VISTA (VISTA is supposed to support 64bit computing).
Dear Sadiq,
HP and NVIDIA screwed up here; they’re trying to avoid a product recall (by not admitting a problem). The S-video does not work because of configuration flaws in the NVidia drivers. If this feature is important to you (i.e. viewing video on TV’s) then I’d suggest you return the unit as soon as possible (that’s what I intend to do). Look even if HP issues a fix, which they may not, they shouldn’t be releasing a product on the market without TESTING a basic feature such as: “does it work with a regular TV?” (afterall this laptop features a remote control and Windows Media Center; pretty stupid of HP not to test out the TV connection). Even if they provide you with some kind of cluged configuration work around, it’s still unacceptable because of the wasted time in trying to figure it out.
Hi Ashutosh,
I purchased dv6114tx last year november and it was working fine…. last day i found, touch pad is not recognising “ENTER” command. Even, its left and right buttons with scroll is working fine…
Can u please suggest me, is there any system problem or i have unknowingly pressed some button? As i m not a old laptop user, i dont know exactly how to rectify this…
thanks in advance,
Dhananjay
Hey thankx Vijay !
Hi! Great information here guys. Good work. I took almost 2 months to decide that I will finally be buying myself a HP dv6114tx, but when I went to the HP store to finally place an order, I was informed that the dv6114tx model has been discontinued, and now HP has no laptop with a 15.4″ screen. I want a laptop with NVidia graphics card, and a 15.4″ screen, and at a price less than 60k. Please advice on the new available models. Thanks in advance.
hi!
to all thoe ppl who have screwed up their quickplay partition,
Its quite easy to restore it. Just use PC recovery software provided wiith ur notebook. Use application recovery option and choose “HP quickplay direct preinstall” to restore the quickplay partition.
Please help me guys, I really need some serious advice. I took almost 2 months to decide that I will finally be buying myself a HP dv6114tx, but when I went to the HP store to finally place an order, I was informed that the dv6114tx model has been discontinued, and now HP has no laptop with a 15.4″ screen. I want a laptop with NVidia graphics card, and a 15.4″ screen, and at a price less than 60k. Please advice on the new available models. Thanks in advance.
Hi All,
I received free TV Tuner Card last satday and, after installaton i watched TV on my laptop. But i m not able to listen FM radio. When i click to radio option in media center, it displayed a message that ur hardware is not compatable for this facility.
Can any one please tell me, have they checked this FM facility on there laptop? and if yes, then how they configured this?
Regards,
Dhananjay
Congrts Dhananjay!! Me still waiting …
I think the TV Tuner which we are getting is not compatible for FM signals .. Check with the available brochure .. and one more thing how did you rectify your problem with the enter key .. Actuall me also facing the same sort of problem … Enter key is pressed automatically using the touchpad… my id is trivzca@gmail.com
bye n happy TV watching ..
This laptop is giving me a weird problem. Sometimes when I want to switch it on, nothing happens. I have to take out the battery, and put it back again to make it start!! And I dont move my laptop, it always stays at one place…..
Hi Aditya,
That’s a strange problem. Better get it checked with HP sooner that later. Maybe your power switch on the laptop keyboard is jammed or stuck. Have it checked to aviod any major problems.
Good luck!
Hi,
The same happened with me four times in 3 months .. i also don’t move my laptop . I’ve to take out battery and reinstall it .
Hi,
I m a proud owner of 6114TX.. really a good model ..
@ gaggan - Yes HP has discontinued this model in Dec 06. Please go for next mode 2046. It ash nVidia and 1GB RAm.. better support for Vista…
Hi,
I have the Tv tuner card but the TV picture quality that comes is not that good. How to listen FM thru that? Pls help
Another serious problem is that the batery life is very poor- only upto 1.5 hrs.
Does anyone else has this problem? Pls help