HP's specification sheet claims that the dv3-2055ea has three USB ports, but port number three evaded detection until we realised that it was combined with the HDMI port. There's a VGA port too, which means that the dv3-2055ea is well-equipped for connecting to external displays -- HD Ready or otherwise. The lack of a Blu-ray drive means there isn't much scope for actually enjoying HD video, though -- you'll need to spend another £80 on the Pavilion dv3-2060ea for that. Still, the inclusion of a LightScribe DVD writer partly makes up for the omission.
Performance
A score of 4,520 in our PCMark05 benchmark test is slightly low for a T6400 processor -- the same chip in the Samsung R610 scored 4,701 -- but it's still within the acceptable performance range.
The 3DMark06 score of 2,452 looks impressive on paper, but it's not so hot in reality. Nvidia reckons that the dv3-2055ea's GeForce G105M GPU will let you 'play the latest games at 1,024x768', but we had to drop Call of Duty: World of War down to a 640x480-pixel resolution before we could achieve a playable frame rate, and it was a similar story with Team Fortress 2. Less graphically demanding titles should run more smoothly, but this is really a laptop for people with a passing interest in playing games, rather than fanatics.
Battery life isn't half bad. The dv3-2055ea lasted for 2 hours and 3 minutes in Battery Eater's intensive Classic test, and 4 hours and 9 minutes in the less demanding Reader's test. Given its dinky dimensions and 2.2kg weight, this makes the laptop as suited to life on the road as it is to life in the living room.
Conclusion
Slim, light and with ports a plenty, HP's Pavilion dv3-2055ea is a very well-specified laptop for the money. It could be quieter and its 3D graphics performance needs to be stronger to live up to the 'entertainment' epithet, but it's still a capable all-rounder with a few features that set it apart from the competition.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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indranil2u 26 April 2010
Good: How it looks
Bad: Everything else
Comment: i can't use my laptop more than 30 mins since it was 5 months old due to overheating. HP's technical support is incompetent with bad communication skills but once they come to know after all the troubleshooting that it is a dv3-2055ea they book you promptly for a repair. Everytime it comes back from the repair centre it runs fine for a month and then the overheating problem resurfaces. This is my third time with the repair centre and they have replaced everything inside the laptop except the motherboard. This laptop is fundamentally flawed and nothing can fix it. My advice to everyone planning to buy this - don't even think about it. Spend a few more quids and buy a macbook or a sony viao.
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