The HP Pavilion DV3-1075US Laptop is essentially a portable home entertainment system. Almost every aspect of its design seems to be geared towards the flawless execution of entertainment media – movies, music, and games.
Fortunately, the powerful hardware required to play high-definition movies and run the latest games means that the HP Pavilion DV3-1075US also has enough power for graphics, audio and video editing, and just about any office software you can think of.
The machine has a set of dual-core AMD Turion CPUs, running at 2.1 GHz, and it comes standard with four gigabytes of RAM, upgradeable to eight gigabytes if necessary. The hard drive is a fairly standard 5400 RPG SATA drive with 320 gigs, and it has a double layer DVD burner.
This laptop has many features that are clearly designed for movies and games. The video card is an ATI Radeon HD 3200 with 64MB of dedicated DDR2 RAM, but the operating system can allocate system RAM to it for a total of almost 2GB of RAM.
The 13.3-inch high-definition screen supports a resolution of 1280×800 pixels, the widescreen movie format. Finally, it comes with a playback remote control, conveniently stored in an Express Card slot when not in use.
The HP Pavilion DV3-1075US is also designed for digital communications in the cyber age. It comes with a built-in webcam and omni-directional microphone for video conversations, and supports fast data transfer. It contains a built-in 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet port, and the wireless card supports the faster 802.11g and 802.11n standards, as well as the slower legacy 802.11a.
However, there is a crack in the armor of the HP Pavilion DV3-1075US and it is the touchpad. It seems to have a mind of its own, but only because of the multi-touch controllers on the touchpad. On its own, the touchpad has a nice feel too.
Our general assessment is that it is a machine with a good value on the market. It is quite capable and is more than reasonable priced for what you get. It’s not going to blow anyone’s doors off, but it’s a good, solid machine that’s more than capable of meeting the needs of everyday use, at a great price.