HP Pavilion dv2—Occupying a Murky Netherworld Between Laptops and Netbooks

Writing about the UMID M1 has gotten me to think a bit more about small computers. I'm currently using a new HP Pavilion dv2. The dv2 isn't a netbook but it's not a full-fledged laptop either. And this bears out in the machine's specs. Armed with an AMD Neo processor which has been compared to Intel's Atom but runs hotter and faster, 4GB of RAM, and ATI Radeon graphics, the dv2 packs a nice punch in terms of real world performance even if it falls a bit short of modern dual core notebooks. It's only slightly larger than a comparable netbook but runs hotter and has less battery life. The result is a tantalizing machine, capable of being a workhorse computer while remaining very mobile.

The dv2 comes with an external DVD-drive which looks better than most external DVDs which is something you don't get if you buy a netbook. It is slimmer and more stylish than the average netbook. Most netbooks use Windows XP as their operating system and most laptops use a 32-bit version of Windows Vista. The dv2 is packing the 64-bit version of Vista which is faster and more secure than the 32-bit version but is not always compatible with every older piece of software. It also packs bright white LEDs which is something of a trend among notebook computers. They always seem to pack brighter and brighter LEDs every year.

But the thin profile of the dv2 is its most striking physical characteristic. At barely an inch thick, makes my Acer netbook and HP laptop look positively obese by comparison. It's a bit heavier than an average netbook but considerably lighter than a normal laptop. This really brings home the fact that this machine in just about every way—in terms of size, weight, performance, and even price—is in between traditional laptops and netbooks. I'm not sure that there is much room in that spot for this machine but we'll see.

It's always interesting to see the choices which are made by manufacturers in terms of the ports which adorn the sides of the notebook PCs. For older laptops this is not much of a decision since they are so big. With newer, smaller notebooks and netbooks it can be a real struggle. My old HP Pavilion has S-video, VGA, firewire, 3 USB ports, 3 audio jacks, ethernet and modem jacks, an SD card slot, an IR port for a remote control, and a proprietary port for an HP expansion dock which I've never seen used by anyone. And it has a built in DVD burner. My Acer netbook has a VGA port, 3 USB ports, an SD slot, two audio jacks and an ethernet jack. The dv2 is equipped similarly to the Acer machine but also adds an HDMI and an external USB DVD burner into the mix. This makes it more complete and more versatile than the average netbook.











But the battery life on the dv2 is only about two and a half to three hours. Impressive to be sure, but less than half what you can get out of a netbook with a six cell battery like the Acer Aspire One. Long battery life translates to long standby time and less need to plug in and recharge. And it runs hotter than most netbooks. So the question is do you want longevity or speed? Depending on your situation, you will probably want one or the other at different times.

One thing regarding the dv2 that I'm not ambivalent about is the keyboard. It compares favorably to the keyboard on my biggest laptop, my HP Pavilion dv9000. This machine comes with a nice big keyboard, complete with a number pad. But it's not without its problems. The right shift key for example is shrunken and scrunched up next to the up arrow key. As a result, I often find myself moving the cursor instead of entering a capital letter or punctuation mark and vice versa. The dv2's keyboard has no such tricks. Except for the function and arrow keys all of its keys are nice and big which makes typing a joy. One of the few things that is missing from the dv2's keyboard are dedicated Page Up, Page Down, Home, and End keys (to save space these have been remapped to arrow keys where they must be accessed using the Fn key.



While the dv9000's keys are fairly traditional with their trapezoidal mound shape, dv2's are much flatter. This makes them feel much larger than they really are while at the same time they also have a subtle curve to them that hugs your fingers as you type. This style of keyboard has been becoming more common in recent months and I certainly hope that it is the beginning of a trend.



While I have never been a huge fan of the touchpads that are so ubiquitous on notebook PCs, the dv2's is at least better than the ones you'll see on any netbook. It is a little wider for its size than you'd expect and that makes navigation on its wide 1280x800 screen a little easier. This screen resolution is quite a bit better than what you'll see on a netbook but about average for a modern laptop. While it's smaller size makes the screen crisp and sharp, it also makes everything look smaller so people with less than perfect vision might find themselves cranking up the font size on this machine.

Generally speaking, the dv2 is a fast machine with a lot of memory and a big (250GB) hard drive. But you might to pack an extra battery if you take it on the road....

Treo Versus T-Mobile G1—On The Inside

One of the greatest strengths of Palm's Treo smartphones has been their large, removable batteries. The large batteries are also one of the reasons why Treos tend to be so thick. The T-Mobile G1 also has a fairly large removable battery but the device itself is so capable that battery life takes a major hit. Moreover, while the G1's battery is removable, it's not nearly as easy to remove as the Treo's battery.

The Treo's battery compartment is very well thought out. As you can see from the comparison photo, the Treo has a nice little button near the bottom of the battery cover which allows you to easily pop it off and get at the battery. While it's not exactly a unique cell phone feature, it works so well that beginning with the 680, Palm decided to abandon the use of a reset button and now sets its devices to automatically reset when you remove the battery.

The G1's battery compartment is somewhat less elegantly designed. The G1 has a release tab which allows you to remove the back panel and get at the battery. In order to do this you must, "Slide open the display to reveal the keyboard." and "Pull the release tab out while at the same time peel the back cover off." (These are direct quotes from the T-Mobile Getting Started booklet.) In practice however once the release tab has been pulled out, the back cover is still firmly attached to the phone and must be removed using an uncomfortable amount of effort. While it's not exactly hard to remove the back panel, the amount of force you need to use tends to slightly deform the back panel causing it to creak slightly—a disappointing thing to see in a hot new phone.

Another problem with the difficult to remove back panel is that the SIM card resides underneath the battery. And the slot where the SIM card resides is just long enough to make removal difficult—not hugely difficult mind you but just enough to annoy. The Treo 680 by contrast, has a handy little tray for the SIM card which makes it easy to remove. The end result is that it is harder to switch back and forth between phones with the G1 than it is with the Treo.

One area where the G1 outshines the Treo is in terms of removable storage. The T-Mobile G1 has a tiny (fingernail sized) microSD card (a 1GB card ships with the G1) which fits into a tiny side door which is built into the device's "chin" which is revealed when you slide out the display to reveal the keyboard. It has all the same problems as the SIM card slot—tiny and hard to remove (I know it's sexist but I sometimes think that the G1 was built specifically for women with small hands and long fingernails). But the nice thing about the G1's microSD card is that once it's in, there is no reason to take it out because the G1 alerts you and offers to mount the card as a removable drive when you attach it to a computer. As a result, it is easy to get things on and off of the card. About the only problem with G1's storage scheme is that there appears to be no way to use the card to store applications which can run on the phone. As a result, you have to rely on the phone's own built-in storage which is somewhat limited. With the growing diversity of third-party Android applications for the G1, expect to see a lot of "low space" warnings.

Palm has always had problems handling removable memory on its devices and the Treo 680 is no exception. The Treo has a large battery door on its side which accommodates SD and SDHC cards. While it's never actually snapped off, the delicate plastic certainly feels like it could snap off easily. And this is a bad thing because there is no way to mount the Treo's SD card as a removable drive on your computer without resorting to expensive third-party software. This has been a problem with Palm devices for years going all the way back to m500 which debuted way back in 2001. It's simply mind-boggling that Palm never got around to fixing this problem in seven years. (Perhaps they figured that it wasn't important and best left to third-party developers but this ignores the fact that this feature has been available on Palm's Windows Mobile smartphones for years while devices based Palm's own, more flexible OS languish.) On the bright side, it is fairly easy to run applications directly from the Treo's SD card although some applications do need to reside on the phone if they handle alarms or are older and can't see the SD card.

Overall, the story of the Treo's internal hardware is one of thoughtful touches marred by one stunning omission. The G1 on the other hand is quite consistent in all areas, rough around the edges but consistently powerful. The G1 is bristling with radios: the obligatory cellular radio which also transmits 3G data, wifi, Bluetooth, and a GPS unit. It downloads email automatically and switches between 3G and wifi on the fly. While you can save on battery life by shutting down its various radios, the G1 uses them so well that there is a tendency to leave them on. If the back panel were easy to remove, carrying a spare battery with the G1 would be a no-brainer. While its battery life is generally poor in comparison with the Treo its hard to see how it could possibly be better given current battery technology, the device simply does too many things. I was going to write that the G1 struggles to get through a day of light usage the fact is that there is no light usage with G1 unless you start turning everything off and just use it as a phone (if this was all I wanted to do, I'd get a dumb phone), it will always be active in the background. The Treo on the other hand gets much better battery life but does less and does a lot of what it does do less well than the G1 does.

Battery Life -- The Bane of Mobile Entertainiment

Ever since my iPod died, I have been using my Palm TX as an MP3 player and video player. It works well in this capacity, I can easily get through an entire day with my Palm TX playing music, listening to podcasts, and watching videos. The problem is that my Palm TX can do more than play music, podcasts, and videos. It can also go on the Internet using wifi or piggybacking on my cell phone's internet connection through Bluetooth.

When you add internet access to the party, a long commute becomes a lot more enjoyable. But suddenly battery life becomes an issue. Surfing the internet while listening to music in the background pretty much kills my TX's battery towards the end of a long day. This wasn't a problem back when I had an iPod which handled the music/podcast listening chores but now that my TX is doing more work it's small battery is being exposed as it's biggest liability.