HP Pavilion dv8025EA laptop review

Can you mix business with pleasure?

3 July 2006 0:55 GMT / By Stephen Patrick

HP’s Pavilion notebooks are the ones you’ll find on the high street and being sold through reseller websites. The machines are aimed at home users looking for a reliable brand at an affordable price.

Increasingly, a number of the Pavilion models have also been aimed at the small business user, you know the type, runs a business from home and is likely to use the office equipment as the home machine too.

Which brings us to the dv8025EA, which is a hulking 3.9kg notebook that is anything but dainty. It comes with a 17-inch Super-TFT screen that has a great deal of clarity and images look really sharp and clear on it. The first sign of compromise can be found in the graphics department, though.

Such machines are usually powerful enough to replace your desktop PC but with the ATi Mobility Radeon 200M graphics card you won’t be able to play any decent games or run anything too intense.

It’s fine for DVD and basic office tasks, however. Altec Lansing speakers are built into the front of the chassis and pump out a reasonably clear sound quality.

Because it’s a widescreen notebook, the keyboard is large and reasonably comfortable to use. It’s not the best keyboard we’ve tried in recent times but it’ll handle kids as well as adults using it.

The nod to the business man comes in the form of a numeric pad, similar to those found on a standard PC keyboard, as well as a quick access button to of all things, the Windows calculator.

The idea of using an AMD processor may be seen as a cost compromise in some quarters but for performance and reliability, the latest mobile chips are just as powerful as Intel’s offerings. In this case, you’ll find the 1.8GHz Turion 64 ML-32, which is a 64-bit that packs plenty of power under the hood. Paired with 1024MB of memory, we had no problem getting this machine to run at a good pace, handling office tasks, as well as a not-so-light music-editing review we needed to finish. The 80GB hard drive is adequate and with a rotational speed of 5400rpm is fast enough to deal with most tasks with ease.

Battery life shouldn’t be a concern with a machine of this size but we managed to get well over four hours without too much trouble, which means you’ll be able to set it up someplace and watch a film in comfort without having to worry about taking the power brick along with you.

Verdict

The standard idea of a desktop replacement is an all-powerful beast that can handle anything and a machine of this size certainly should be able to pack in more than it currently does.

If you need more, you’re better off looking elsewhere. However, it’s a good machine and offers great value for money and if you a fairly basic set of needs it’ll suit you down to the ground.

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Review Recap

Made by: HP
Price as reviewed: £999
Latest price: Compare prices
The good: Great price, decent specification
The bad: Big, heavy, poor graphics
Quick verdict: It’s a hulking heavy machine that should pack the latest and greatest into one box but HP has trimmed the specs to meet the price, which is a pity
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