79
HP Pavilion dv6 (early 2012)
6.0
final rating

reviewed on
purchased on
this review has been viewed 330 times

Criteria Comments Rating
  • Speed and features No comments good
  • Design and form factor Heats up to the point of barely usable without getting burned while playing games. poor
  • Battery life No comments good
  • Display No comments good
  • Durability No comments good
  • Expandability No comments good
  • Noise No comments good
  • Portability (size / weight) No comments good
Detailed review
This laptop has worked fine, but gets very hot when doing anything graphic/cpu intensive. To keep the temperature down, I've had to change the ATI GPU to Power Save Mode and set the laptop to Power Saver mode, also throttling back the Maximum Processor State to 80% through the Advanced Power settings in Windows. All of this makes running games rather sluggish, so literal burning fast performance or mediocre everything else, that's the trade-off.

I recently tried streaming video on the laptop with the HDMI out to a TV, and with the lid closed, caused it to overheat and shutoff. A cooling tray under the laptop helps some, but I've had to place a towel under my wrists while typing as it becomes burning hot.