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....

How Low Can You Go?

Boing Boing Gadgets features the Umid M1, a tiny, little Windows XP laptop which measures 6.2"x3.7"x0.7" and weighs in at just 0.69 lbs (11.04 onces). I hesitate to call it a "netbook" because even though this little guy has the classic netbook package—an Atom processor 512MB of RAM and a 16 or 32GB solid state drive and a 1024x600 screen—it is a bit more expensive than the average netbook at $600-$750.

It's still an amazing little device which packs a full fledged PC into a package only slightly larger than my cell phone. And I'm not kidding about that last part. When its slider is open to reveal its keyboard, my T-Mobile G1 is roughly 4.6"x3.9"x0.7" and it weighs 5.6 ounces a little more than half the weight of of this tiny PC. Judging from the pictures on the website and doing a quick comparison with my G1 and a tape measure, I think that a person with reasonably big hands should be able to thumb type on this device. This is important because while the keyboard is almost certainly too tiny for conventional touch typing, being able to thumb type would make it a lot more usable—particularly to people—used to using cell phones with QWERTY keyboards. This is a very intriguing little machine.

Form Factors—How Big is Too Big and How Small is Too Small?

I've played with a lot of laptops recently and have been thinking a lot about the adjustments that must be made when switching from one machine to another. Ultimately I've found that the single biggest trade off is the one made between portability and physical comfort, the comfort of the keyboard and the comfort of the screen. While performance and battery life are also issues, they tend to be secondary.

There are four laptops in this picture with a T-Mobile G1 cell phone for comparison and for the fact that its slide out keyboard makes it look like a tiny laptop. At the very bottom of this stack but still big enough to dwarf its companions is my big 17" HP Pavilion laptop. It's my workhorse machine with its big 1440x900 resolution screen and huge keyboard complete with number keys. I can use it for hours for pretty much any task imaginable, surfing the web, reading email, chatting on Usenet, downloading movies, and burning CDs sometimes all at once. Lately, I've even started letting it run overnight for really big downloads. It has a dual core processor, 3GB of memory, an NVIDIA graphics card, and two hard drives—the 250GB drive that it came with and an 80GB that I salvaged from a dead computer. It's pretty much all the computer most people need these days. It's also big and heavy and runs so hot that I use one of those silly laptop stands with cooling fans to keep it cool. Weighing in at almost eight pounds, it is not a true mobile computer. It's simply too big and heavy to be carried comfortably when I venture outside my home.

Next up is the computer it replaced, another HP Pavilion laptop. (I tend to like HPs and judging from their recent commercials, so does Microsoft.) It has a smaller 15.4" 1280x800 screen and a more traditional but still generously sized keyboard. Despite its age, it's still pretty well equipped: a slower dual core processor and NVIDIA graphics card, and an 80GB hard drive. The hard drive is pretty small by today's standards but otherwise it holds its own with most newer laptops. In fact, I must admit that I only replaced it because I got a good deal on the big laptop. This machine is a couple of pounds lighter than the machine that replaced it, making it more portable or at the very least schleppable. But it's still pretty heavy machine to carry around. It's the kind of machine that you stuff in a backpack when you expect to need it but you won't tend to carry it around if you don't have to.

This brings me to the netbooks. I have been using an Acer Aspire One pretty heavily in recent months because of its small size and light weight. The original Acer Aspire One had an 8.9" 1024x600 screen. It was slow, hot, and had a cramped keyboard. But at around three pounds it was so light that I could take it anywhere without a second thought. Its successor, Acer Aspire One D150, subtly improved on it every way. The 10.1" screen had the same resolution but was easier on the eyes. The touchpad on both netbooks is pretty small but at least the D150 moved the mouse buttons to the bottom instead of leaving them on the sides which makes mousing on the original Acer Aspire One awkward. It also has a slightly faster processor and a slightly bigger keyboard. While the screen is still a bit small, this particular Acer model is very close to the sweet spot for a netbook. It is a reasonably capable machine which is comfortable to use and eminently portable.

Finally, the original netbook was the Asus EeePC. The one pictured above is a EeePC 4G, a slightly more powerful variant of the original. It's an extremely basic machine and using it is something of a shock. First of all, the operating system which ships with it is almost unusable. It was unstable and could never seem to remember how to connect to my wifi hotspot. I finally replaced the OS with Easy Peasy, a stripped down Linux distribution based on Ubuntu. This allowed me to finally use the machine and get a feel for how it worked. It allowed me to appreciate the machine for what it was, a very basic machine that is capable of light web browsing, email, and other simple tasks. But it really does push the limits of usability in terms of screen and keyboard size. It's 7.1" screen has an 800x480 resolution which can make web browsing a challenge. The tiny keyboard is also pretty difficult for adult hands to use. Once you get down to this territory, you are really dealing with child size devices.

As a post script it's interesting to note that as our laptops are getting smaller, our cell phones seem to be getting bigger—at least in terms of screen and keyboard size. From the Treo to the iPhone to the T-Mobile G1 to the Blackberry cell phones have been trying to solve this form factor conundrum for over a decade. They bring out a phone with a keyboard and big screen and immediately search for ways to make it smaller. Then they experiment. They eliminate a physical keyboard or add a slider and the cycle continues. But ultimately they settle on boxes that are roughly the same size. Laptop makers are going through the same thing now.