Digital Home Thoughts: HP's dv6885se Special Edition Copper 'Thrive' Notebook

This gorgeous laptop from HP is a special edition product that's sold exclusively at Best Buy locations. It features an Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 CPU at 2.1 Ghz, Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN WiFi, 3 GB DDR2 RAM, a 15.4" WXGA screen, a 250GB Serial ATA hard drive (5400 rpm), a 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS GPU, and all the usual ports (USB, Ethernet, Firewire, HDMI, VGA-out, etc.). Full specifications can be found at HP's Web site. At the time I shot this video, it was selling for $1149 USD directly from Best Buy (today it's $1149), but I've seen it as low as $999. With the Centrino 2 platform now shipping, one would hope HP would update the hardware on this laptop. Check out the video, and my testing notes, after the break.

Figure 1: The copper-like finish is gorgeous in photos and in person.

[click through to YouTube to see it in higher quality]

Figure 2: The Windows Experience Index.

It came with an unfortunate amount of bundled software that's almost all worthy of removing:

Activation Assistant for Office 2007
AIM6
Compatibility Pack for Office 2007
EA Link
Norton Internet Security
Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007 Trial
Microsoft Office PowerPoint Viewer
Microsoft Works
My HP Games (31 check-boxes alone to remove all the games!)
Norton Internet Security
QuickPlay SlingPlayer
Slingbox Flash Tour
SlingPlayer
The Sims Life Stories
Viewpoint Media Player
Yahoo! Toolbar

Some might feel that programs like Microsoft Works and The Sims Life Story don't belong in that list, but I'd strongly prefer them to be included on CD only, giving the user a choice to install it if they want to. I understand there's financial incentive for HP to include most of this software, but when you're paying over $1000 USD for a laptop, especially a special edition laptop, you'd think they're care just as much about the out of box software experience as they do the physical hardware design.

Pardon the side-rant, but Microsoft Works in particular is just embarrassing to look at. It has a user-interface stuck in 1998; check out how much it looks like WordPad below.

Figure 3: Microsoft Works circa 1998 2008.

Figure 4: WordPad circa 2008.

The hardware provided was powerful enough to overcome all of the bundled software, at least when it came to booting up; prior to cleaning off all the junk, I measured the boot time at 54 seconds from power off to the first appearance of the desktop. Shutting down took 18 seconds. After removing all the crapware and installing the Windows Vista updates, the boot up time remained at the same unimpressive 54 seconds, but the shut-down time was only 12 seconds (a 34% improvement).

Overall, I loved the design of the laptop, and the hardware you get gives pretty good bang for the buck - though you are paying something for the copper finish. My biggest complaint? The 12-cell battery. It's great to have a high-capacity battery, but not as the only battery in the box - the 12-cell battery is extremely bulky and adds significant weight to the laptop. HP should have included it as a bonus, while still providing a 6-cell battery that sits flush with the laptop. Beyond that gripe, this is a great laptop, although as I mentioned in the first paragraph, the hardware is now somewhat dated - hopefully HP is looking at doing a Centrino 2 refresh.

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Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys photography, mobile devices, blogging, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He wonders who will be the first OEM to truly cut out the crapware.