Thin is in
A couple of pictures show it alongside an MSI Wind U100 netbook - currently a popular choice for around £250. The HP dv2 is larger, of course, but the extra size is put to good use with the addition of a discrete graphics card.
It's also thinner than the Wind, at the front at least, and is better built, as well.
Machine setup
HP loads this particular variant of the dv2 with Microsoft Vista Home Premium and a gaggle of software, including HP MediaSmart Suite; Windows Media Player; Windows Photo Gallery; DVD Play; Windows Movie Maker; Windows DVD Maker; Cyberlink DVD Suite; Windows Media center; HP Total Care Advisor, and HP Games Console with hours of free game play, to quote the blurb.
It's great to have 'free software', but load the dv2 up with the system set to the power-saving battery profile and it takes a good minute for the laptop to become fully usable once Vista has loaded. Given a choice, we'd get rid of the extra software for a lean, mean build.
The hard-drive is partitioned into two sections. A 10.8GB partition is reserved for recovery purposes, and HP documentation makes factory-fresh recover a simple affair.
Pre-benchmark summary
Lots of good and some bad points make the HP Pavilion dv2 a beauty-and-the-beast laptop. Let's see how it performs before we pass judgement.
