Notebook Hunter

For $1069 the HP Pavilion DV6 3006TX gives you a lot of power for your money. It might be sold as an entertainment notebook, but without a Blu-Ray reader or TV tuner this claim is dubious. But let’s get to the specs; an Intel Core i5-430M CPU may be a lower end Core i5, but it’s still among the best CPUs available. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics card is one of ATI’s better offerings, so you’ll be running games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on high settings with no problems. HD video editing is therefore also within reach, and even the most heavy duty general computing won’t trouble this notebook.

The other components are a bit varied, ranging from a somewhat low resolution 15.6in (1366x768) screen, typical 500GB hard drive, and also typical 4GB of RAM  The hard drive and RAM are still both very good though, and more than enough for most notebook users. It’s physically average, weighing 2.45kg and measuring 378x245x36 mm. A better screen would have made this good notebook a great one, as would a better Core i5 CPU. Nonetheless, for the asking price this would be a fine purchase.

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