HP Pavilion dv7-6b55dx

The HP Pavilion dv7-6b55dx ($699.99 list at Best Buy), a budget desktop replacement laptop, has a battery capable of lasting over nine hours and several wireless technologies working under its sleek aluminum body. Its Core i5 processor offered solid performance in day-to-day, and considering its price point, this laptop can compete with the best of them.

Design
The dv7-6b55dx has the same brushed, dark umber aluminum lid and palm rest as the Editors' Choice HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl ($949.99 list, 4 stars). A small HP logo sits in the lower-left hand corner, and illuminates when the laptop is turned on. A silver band lines the edge of the laptop, breaking up the deep brown design. The entire system weighs 6.94 pounds, and 1.05 pounds of that total weight can be attributed to its 9-cell 100Wh battery. The battery is so big that it actually raises the laptop up at a slight angle in the back. The HP dv7-6163cl has the same battery, but weights slightly more (7.4 pounds) than the dv7-6b55dx.

The 17.3-inch screen is framed by a glossy black bezel and displays in 1,600-by-900 resolution, which translates to 720p HD. If you're looking for a true 1080p HD viewing experience, you'll have to start looking at laptops like the Acer Aspire AS8950G-9839 ($1,499.99 street, 4 stars), which come at a premium. However, you can export video on the laptop to an external display in 1080p through the HDMI port or built-in WiDi 2.0 streaming technology, which allows you to wirelessly display your computer's content (provided you have a Netgear Push2TV adapter to receive the signal).

Its chiclet-style keyboard is full-size and has a numeric keypad to boot. The trackpad has a light texture, and provided a comfortable surface to navigate on. The separate mouse buttons where easy to click, providing little resistance to register a tap. The entire touchpad is framed by a white light, which will help users that like to work late nights.

Features
The dv7-6b55dx comes equipped with several standout features such as two USB 3.0 ports and WiMAX 4G broadband. Topping off the feature list are two USB 2.0 ports, a tray-loading DVD+-RW drive, VGA video output, media card reader (SD, MMC), two headphone and one mic jack, Ethernet port, fingerprint reader, and a Webcam above the screen. The Pavilion dv7-6b55dx also features the sexy Beats Audio software, which allows you to ramp up the bass and tailor your listening experience depending on if you're watching a movie, listening to a podcast, or playing music. The Beats Audio software ultimately helps output better sound whether you're listening through headphones or through HP's laptop speakers. The built-in HP triple bass subwoofers certainly helped create more depth in sound.

Its 750GB hard drive should be sufficient to hold all your digital content with room to spare. However, it does come loaded with some bloatware. Bing Bar, Blio ereader, Evernote, and a desktop shortcut to eBay top off the list.

Best Buy offers an extended warranty program, which gives customers an extra year of protection beyond the one-year warranty of most system manufacturers. There are two plans in this extended warranty program. The standard plan ($119.99) covers the system against normal wear and tear, power surge damage, and includes a "No Lemon" guarantee in which Best Buy will simply replace the computer if it requires more than four repairs during the coverage period. Best Buy's advanced plan ($219.99) offers all this, and also covers the system against accidental damage from drops and spills. Other special offers can be found online or in stores, like discounts on printers, software, and tech support plans which are available with any new PC purchased through Best Buy.

Performance
The dv7-6b55dx is equipped with a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-2430M processor and 8GB of RAM. In day-to-day tasks, the dv7-6b55dx is a solid performer, as shown in our PCMark 7 test (2,406). A Core i5 processor in the sub-$700 price range is fairly standard, so there wasn't a huge variation in performance scores among laptops like the Asus U56E-BBL6 ($699.99 list, 4 stars) (2,255) and Dell Inspiron i17R-6434DBK ($749.99 list, 3.5 stars) (2,240). In more CPU-intensive tasks, there weren't any major differences in scores. For instance, it took the dv7-6b55dx 4 minutes 2 seconds to run through our Photoshop CS5 script, while it took the Asus U56E-BBL6 the same amount of time (4:02) and the Dell i17-6434DBK 4:09. Likewise, in Cinebench R11.5, a 3D rendering test, the dv7-6b55dx scored 2.71 points where the Asus U56E-BBL6 scored 2.68.

The dv7-6b55dx doesn't come equipped with a discrete graphics card, like the HP dv7-6163cl (AMD Radeon HD 6770M). Rather it has Intel integrated graphics, which won't get you as far as a dedicated chip would on the gaming grid. The dv7-6b55dx wasn't able to garner a playable frame rate average (30fps is considered playble) in either DirectX 10 Crysis (13.6 frames per second) or DirectX 9 Lost Planet 2 (20 fps); whereas the HP dv7-6163cl tore through Crysis (53fps) on Medium quality settings and 1,024-by-768 resolution. So if you want to play anything beyond World of Warcraft, you'll have to start considering laptops in the $900 price range.

In our MobileMark 2007 battery test, the dv7-6b55dx's 100Wh battery lasted 9 hours 33 minutes, longer than the HP dv7-6163cl's same-size (100Wh)battery (8:24) and Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft)'s ($999 direct, 4 stars) smaller 54Wh battery (7:13).

The HP Pavilion dv7-6b55dx has a lot of features to recommend it, like WiDi 2.0, WiMAX 4G, and USB 3.0. However, the Editors' Choice Asus U56E-BBL6 offers the same features at the same price, but in a slightly more portable 15.6-inch package. If your work/life requires a bigger screen, longer battery life (2 hours more than Asus), better audio quality (though not by much), and more security out of its fingerprint reader, then the dv7-6b55dx might be the better option. But it's not quite enough to usurp the Asus U56E-BBL6 as the current Editors' Choice, if only because it got there first.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the HP Pavilion dv7-6b55dx with several other laptops side by side.

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