Product Reviews

HP's Pavilion dv9292eu is one of the most stylish desktop replacement notebooks we've reviewed. It has a big 17in widescreen display with a native resolution of 1,440x900 pixels, which can display about as much information as a 17in, 1,280x1,024-pixel desktop screen. It produces bright whites and has high levels of contrast. In our demanding greyscale and colour wheel tests it performed excellently, with smooth transitions between shades, making it ideal for colour-sensitive work such as photo manipulation.

Instead of using the notebook's display, you can connect an HD TV to its HDMI port. We tested it with a Sony LCD TV, which worked fine in 720p mode. We couldn't get the graphics driver to match the exact 1,366x768-pixel resolution of the TV, but even in standard 720p our HD video test files looked as good as we've ever seen them. Disappointingly, though, the HDMI output doesn't carry audio, so you'll need to use the line out or mini-jack S/PDIF.

Above the display are a microphone and a 1.3-megapixel webcam suitable for online video

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chat. Below is a metallic silver grille that hides the speakers. They sound better than those of most notebooks, with a balanced range and even some bass, but they distort above half-volume. A series of touch-sensitive buttons above the keyboard control the volume and basic media playback commands.

The keyboard is generally good, but we're not keen on the touch pad, which is more sensitive vertically than horizontally. There are two Media Center remote controls. One is tucked away in the ExpressCard/54 slot; the other is larger and has a better key layout. The supplied digital TV tuner also uses the ExpressCard slot. It works with Media Center, which is part of the installed Windows Vista Home Premium operating system, and has an excellent interface and a great electronic programme guide. The big 160GB hard disk can hold around 100 hours of recorded TV.

It has a 2.0GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60 processor. It's not as fast as the 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 used by PC Nextday's Zoostorm 53-7701, but it's easily quick enough for most tasks, including taxing jobs such as video encoding. The graphics chipset is Nvidia's GeForce Go 7600. It's a lot quicker than the ATI chipset in the Zoostorm, and we had to reduce the high detail settings used in our Call of Duty 2 test only slightly to get a playable frame rate in the game. It's ideal if you want to play games occasionally.

This isn't as powerful as the Zoostorm in Windows applications, but outperforms it in 3D games. It's a pity the tuner isn't a hybrid model, but the excellent display makes it a better entertainment notebook for those with Freeview TV reception.