*HP dv6t & dv7t (70XX / 71XX series) IVY BRIDGE Owners Lounge*

[clansing]

There's a newer option, that sounds like the best option to me, it's like a Roku player that streams Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, etc - and also does WiDi. I ordered one and should have it in a couple of days. If anyone wants, I'll let you know how well it works.

Netgear's NeoTV Pro adds WiDi, makes any TV smart -- Engadget

Cool, I'm wondering about that box - would you say the lag was noticeable at all? I'm wondering about using that with a flight sim and some USB controls ... I'm planning on using HDMI cable but it'd be nice to do without that trip-hazard.

I could hardly notice the lag, only when watching a movie that was displayed on both the laptop and the tv at the same time. If you turn off the laptop display I don't think you would notice. that being said I would guess a flight simulator would be ok but not something like battlefield

[Falco152]

Really depends if your flight sim can handle Intel HD graphics though.

Intel WiDi uses the Intel HD graphics to render.
You can't force it to use the Nvidia card.

[stidolph]

Really depends if your flight sim can handle Intel HD graphics though.

Intel WiDi uses the Intel HD graphics to render.
You can't force it to use the Nvidia card.

Oh. Well, darn. Thanks ... cable for me!

[eafd]

Well I would still get the 1TB HDD, BTW mine have a DriveGuard which protects the HDD; I'm not sure how this is different from HP protect-smart but I would definitely not buy a hard drive solely based on its availability.
as for the CPU I recommend the 3610 (2.3 GHZ) simply because you would hardly notice the difference in everyday application (including most games), so unless you are running some CPU intensive application regularly then you probably shouldn't pay 175$ or more for something you wouldn't need.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, if you need the 1TB space of the HDD, and still want the fast speed of SSD, then you can later buy an mSATA drive as large as 512GB and disable its caching function and use it as a separate drive, thus getting SSD speed while still have the HDD for storage.

I called HP and they told me that the 1TB HDD DOES in fact have HP Protect-Smart.

[gadgetrants]

My sense from looking at laptop drives is that for the major manufacturers it's pretty much a standard feature now -- just run a utility like Passmark's DiskCheckup (PassMark DiskCheckup - SMART hard drive monitoring utility) and look at the SMART Data: if you see something like "FE - Freefall Protection" you should be good to go (at least I assume so).

EDIT: just checked the SMART data on an older HP laptop (which for sure did not advertise "drop protection") and while the "Freefall" parameter is missing, I saw "GSense Error Rate" which seems to be the sensor for drops, falls, bumps, etc. It does look like the feature has been available a while:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.

-Matt

[peidekun]

Anyone has this problem with the 1080P screen yet:
I have a Dell U2412M 24’ monitor that I use as an external monitor, and it has a resolution of 1920x1200. My new DV6 with the 1080P screen needs a 125% DPI scaling for text to look reasonable in windows. However, when I use it with the dell monitor, 125% DPI scaling is actually wayyy more than I need and I am actually losing a lot of desktop real estate on the big monitor. This was not a problem before though with my old laptop – it has 1280x800 14’ screen. It requires no DPI scaling in windows, so my 24’ monitor, I am actually getting what I really have in terms of desktop real estate. Of course I can set the DPI scaling on the DV6 to 100%, but all the text will be impossible to read.

[lsheldon]

My sense from looking at laptop drives is that for the major manufacturers it's pretty much a standard feature now -- just run a utility like Passmark's DiskCheckup (PassMark DiskCheckup - SMART hard drive monitoring utility) and look at the SMART Data: if you see something like "FE - Freefall Protection" you should be good to go (at least I assume so).

EDIT: just checked the SMART data on an older HP laptop (which for sure did not advertise "drop protection") and while the "Freefall" parameter is missing, I saw "GSense Error Rate" which seems to be the sensor for drops, falls, bumps, etc. It does look like the feature has been available a while:

S.M.A.R.T. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

-Matt

One thing to note regarding this, the HP Protect Smart uses a software application and an accelerometer that is external the the hard disk. It does not use a sensor internal to the hard disk. This means you will still have shock protection even if the hard disk in use doesn't support it. There is also an LED that tells you when its activated.

GSense Error Rate is actually an attribute that stores quantity of errors occuring as a result of internal impact loads.

[akbungle]

For those folks looking for a great price on an 256GB SSD check this out and use the coupon code listed:

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)


Please delete if this is against the forum rules. Just thought I'd pass on a deal that I grabbed today.

[uncola]

haha darn it I just ordered that same ssd and paid more

[peidekun]

Tempting, but my DV6 has 32GB mSSD + 1TB HDD on it, it's definitely plenty fast for now...