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HP Pavilion dv2040TX

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia on 17 August 2006

HP's new line of entertainment notebooks not only delivers in features, but also goes the extra mile in redesigning the chassis to appeal to those with unconventional tastes.

Editor's rating:8.0 User rating:8

Comments (80)

  • xiccoune gave 9/10 on 19/03/2007 18:58

    • Good: Excellent features, like integrated mic and webcam, remote control, at-the-ready media controls and mute button. Great performance to price ratio.
    • Bad: Battery life, HP preinstalled nagware

    First notebook I've owned able to play all my games and software lag-free. I also love the integrated webcam and mic, which I use frequently chatting with hometown friends now that I'm at college.

    Battery is drained rapidly when using wi-fi, playing games, or watching movie, but pretty good for "normal" office progs.

  • Jeffrey2brasil gave 4/10 on 14/03/2007 04:43

    • Good: Looks great, if the quality of the asthetics went in to all of the parts, it would be a wonderful notebook
    • Bad: If you read the comment above, there is no need to re-list the cons... I think the mediocre rating is being polite due to good past history with HP...

    This has been by far the worst puchase experince I have ever had. The dv2000, looks great, and runs great as well.... For a month or two. Problem 1. The heat sink and the fan went out making this horrible screaching sound before a short fried my HD and I lost all of my data bc the HD (after being told was IDE and to use a USB to IDE cable to extract my data) wasnt anything normal to a PC. It wasnt IDE and it wasnt SATA either. It looks like a SATA cut in half and it hooks in to from the top... HP wouldnt back up my data and tossed my old HD not telling me they did. The service received from sending it in was terrible. I was told after sending it in and 2 months passed by that I would recieve in January 5th..... I called on the 5th to see where it was because I hadnt recieved it yet. No one could tell me where it was nor what was even done to the unit as far as work went. 3 weeks pass by and I finally get a response... I didnt recieve it back until late february which means it was gone for over 3 months about before I even got it back. HP wouldnt send a new one and wouldnt send out a loaner because they had the items needed on backorder I was told when I did get contact from someone. I think the response came from the constant e-mails I was sending to the CEO's mailbox from the webpage. I wrote every day for about 2 weeks before a response from a case manager. She was great. I received the unit back, but now the built in meb cam doesnt work at all, it doesnt even register in the notebook. I tried downloading the drivers and software online but I dont think it is connected internally now. And I traveled where there was no wireless, I went to plug in the ethernet cable and the little metal brackets on the side bent and now I cannot use the port. Week 2 now again with no response from the case manager assigned to me from the first problem. I never knew that I could have had a better experince through dell or whats that other company called??...gateway??? HP was supposed to be on the upturn, maybe financially but if the rest of the people that I have seen returning the same unit because of similar problems are all over the world, then HP may be back on the downturn. ThinkPad or Toshiba are really looking good to me right now

  • apocalyptist gave 7/10 on 08/03/2007 22:28

    • Good: Stylish
    • Bad: and of course, battery

    i just bought it week ago with Vista Premium on it, and im still having problem connecting to a Wi-Fi Network...

  • leblegend777 gave 9/10 on 28/02/2007 20:03

    • Good: Great Media Accessibility
      Great speed
      Efficient
      Has Camera
      Is Stylish
      Compact
    • Bad: Low Battery Life like 1 hour and Half but thats why u can buy another battery or charge it

    I bought the laptop last year in Oct and its still top of the range

  • Mad in Tassie gave 2/10 on 14/02/2007 19:10

    • Good: Good computer
    • Bad: All of HP's pre installed software/advertisements

      CUSTOMER SUPPORT

    Well folks, hope you don't have a problem with this machine...

    I got mine in November, had a small problem and sent it in to get re-imaged. I got it back with XP Home instead of Pro. Called HP and they say it didn't come with Pro and wont fix it!

    Trying to talk to someone in Australia is impossible.

    This is my 3rd Compaq/HP but I doubt I'll ever get another.

  • SP gave 10/10 on 06/02/2007 17:40

    • Good: Nothing
    • Bad: Will Tell u in approx 20 years......if I find anything.

    Hey all, I bought this laptop last month and its really amazing.. specially its stylish looks and sleek feature. I am still getting used to it and I think its the best, if u are not a very much computer geek. Good for daily and people who use less / moderate internet or other stuff. Its best for less.

  • Pentadude gave 8/10 on 08/01/2007 04:38

    • Good: Light Weight
      Quick Launch Multimedia Buttons
      Remote Control (doesn't work on Linux)
      SD/MMC Card Reader (doesn't work on Linux)
      Great Fun with the Integrated Webcam
    • Bad: Very Short Battery Life (less than 90 minutes when playing games)
      Stiff Keyboard
      DV2040 allergic to Linux

    I love this computer for its light weight (5.3 pounds) and its front plug for earphones. It has a special wave design that gives it some personality. It's pretty good for games (Nvidia 256 Mb graphcard and turion 64x2 dualcore) but in general it requires low graphics. But i use to play civilization 4 warlords and dawn of war, so the graphics aren't a big deal to enjoy the game. Anyways, if you want to play high detailled games, get a PC, not a laptop! I find the keyboard a bit stiff when i type for several hours, but the function key and the HP quick launch buttons works well. I had some problems with SuSE Linux, especially with the graph card, but for those who still stick to XP Home, there are no major problems. However, no XP Home DVD was provided with the laptop, it was rather on a separate 9Gb partition of the hard drive. That's 10% of the whole space, so the disk is rather 71Gb than 80. If you do like me, make a copy of this partion on a double-layer DVD and format the partition. There! 9Gb more for my movies.

  • eviltwiglett gave 9/10 on 06/01/2007 06:56

    • Good: Graphics are brilliant considering......portablility is fantastic
    • Bad: battery as usual.

    Well i got mine with a Turion 64x2 processor also running at 1.66 and its much faster than the core duo, buy this one!! and its much better with windows media center.

    Runs c & c first decade all games fine, FEAR extraction point runs well but at quite low detail and everthing else seems to be fine.

    Now i don't no where everyone is getting this 3 hr battery life from, if i play a game less than one hour, dvd about 1 hr 30, surfing 1 45. No longer than that so i am very jealous of the rest of you, maybe its to do with the dual core? i heard they last longer....

  • Just a reviewer gave 8/10 on 03/01/2007 23:10

    • Good: -2 Gb RAM
      -2Ghz Core2Duo processor
      -Nice Size
      -Really Quiet
      -Camera
      -No boot problems, failures or any of that
    • Bad: -Short Battery life
      -Allright Graphics card.. (geforce go 7200)

    Great laptop, just wish the graphics card could be better..Geforce go 7200 can run games allright, but not to great with Anti-Aliasing..

    My Specs: HP dv_2097

  • Dman Dan gave 10/10 on 25/12/2006 15:31

    • Good: everything
    • Bad: no cons wat so ever

    excellent, everything that i needed in a laptop.

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