Sunday, February 04, 2007

Hewlett-Packard - Pavilion Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 - dv6208nr

This isn't a recommendation for either Best Buy or HP notebook PCs, but rather a checkpoint on Vista PCs.

With AMD Turion™ 64 mobile technology, this entertainment notebook powers through applications with speed and efficiency. The 5-in-1 digital media reader and double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW drive help you manage your digital movies and music.

15.4" WXGA, gig of RAM, 100 GB hard disk, Windows Vista Home Premium (which is a $159.99 software-only upgrade from Best Buy and most other retailers at the moment) -- see the link below for more details.

The price: $649.99 after $150 rebate. Ads in this morning's Boston Globe list other Vista laptops for less than $500 after rebates, with Vista Basic and 512M memory (don't go there, imho; start with at least a gig of memory and an Aero-capable graphics card).

Especially considering the new Microsoft tools for moving apps and data from old PCs to new Vista PCs, I think it's pretty clear that only hobbyists (with a lot of spare time...) will attempt to upgrade rather than buying new PCs.

Meanwhile, the least expensive MacBook at the moment, with 512M memory and a 60 GB hard disk, is $1,099. A MacBook Pro with features comparable to the $650 HP starts at $1,999.

Source: Hewlett-Packard - Pavilion Notebook with AMD Turion™ 64 - dv6208nr