Fans of glossy-looking consumer technology should check out the shiny new HP Pavilion dv6000 series. To say these laptops are shiny is an understatement -- they have the kind of sheen that could put Patrick Stewart's head to shame.
As well as looking like they've been greased up for a triathlon, the laptops use HP's new 'imprint finish', so the black lid and silver keyboard sections have an intricate fingerprint-style pattern running throughout. This fits in with HP's "the computer is personal again" marketing campaign. Fingerprints? Personal? Geddit? Ironically it also collects your own fingerprint smudges like there's no tomorrow.
The new look won't be to everyone's taste but it's an improvement on HP's staid designs of old. We think it looks pretty good, but one thing we didn't like was the keyboard and mouse. The keys have a tendency to wobble about, and there's too much travel in the mouse buttons.
Aside from that it's all dandy. The touch-sensitive hotkeys are a nice touch, as are the twin headphone ports that let two people listen to music or watch a DVD without disturbing others. The dv6000 range uses AMD Turion 64 X2 processors -- not the more fashionable Intel Core 2 Duo, but at least they're dual-core. Plus you get an Nvidia GeForce Go 6150 graphics card to play games on the 15.4-inch display.
Impressively, you get all this, plus Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 2GB of RAM, for just £749. You can expect a full review shortly. -RR
Update: A full review of the HP Pavilion dv6000 is now live in our Reviews channel.