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Review HP Pavilion dv9074cl Notebook

Turion CPU. The HP Pavilion dv9074cl's performance is alright. Because of a high clocked AMD Turion CPU and fast memory chips, its performance is comparable to notebooks with lower clocked Intel processors.

HP Pavilion dv9074cl Logo

Case

Following review is provided by notebookcheck.pl, our Polish editor team.

Overall, all notebooks of the dv9000 series have a common design. Also the dv9074cl has a piano coating and shows the already known wave pattern.

Generally, the workmanship of the dv9000 series is alright. However, the panel above the keyboard is not at the same level than the surrounding case.

The display cover slightly yields under pressure, but in total it is still rather robust. Tough the hinges are small, they hardly allow any wobbling.

The Pavilion dv9000 series and the dv6000 series mainly differ by their closing mechanism. While the dv6000 notebooks utilize a magnetic locking, the bigger 17 inch dv9000 series provide a standard latch with two bolts.

Because of its design specifics none of the interfaces could be located at the notebook's backside. Besides of the audio ports, the infrared port and the WLan switch, all other interfaces were located left and right of the notebook. Unfortunately, the dv9074cl lacks a HDMI interface. In turn the provided display rates rather good in our test.

HP Pavilion dv9074cl interfaces
Front Side: IrDA, Audio Ports
HP Pavilion dv9074cl interfaces
Left Side: S-Video, VGA, Docking Station Port, LAN, Modem, 2x USB, FireWire, Card Reader
HP Pavilion dv9074cl interfaces
Right Side: USB, ExpressCard, DVD drive, USB, Power Connector
HP Pavilion dv9074cl interfaces
Back Side: No Ports

Input Devices

The keyboard of the dv9000 series is basically identical to the one of the Pavilion dv6140ea. It provides a  seperate numerical keypad, however the enter key extends only over one row.

Typing features a short travel and an extremely abrupt stop and is a little bit noisy.

The touchpad is not placed in the center, but a little bit moved to the left. This was not uncomfortable for us, but chances are that the touchpad is accidentally activated by the left wrist. However, it can be deactived by a little button, lit by a small blue LED. The touchpad is the same than the one of the smaller dv6000 series. Its sliding properties are not ideal, and the according buttons not really user-friendly.

HP Pavilion dv9074cl Touchpad
Touchpad
HP Pavilion dv9074cl Keyboard
Keyboard

Display

HP Pavilion dv9074cl Display
Color Diagram

The Pavilion dv9074cl is equipped with a 17 inch display with a resolution of 1440x900 pixels made by Quanta. We measured the maximum brightness of 201.2cd/m² in the lower part of the screen. The illumination is also alright and amounts to 80.5%.

161.9
cd/m²
184.9
cd/m²
170
cd/m²
169.8
cd/m²
193.7
cd/m²
176.3
cd/m²
180.3
cd/m²
201.2
cd/m²
196.3
cd/m²
Distribution of brightness
Maximum: 201.2 cd/m² (Nits) Average: 181.6 cd/m²
Brightness Distribution: 80 %
Contrast: 215:1 (Black: 0.9 cd/m²)

A black value of 0.9cd/m² gives together with the measured maximum brightness a contrast ratio 224:1.

HP Pavilion dv9074cl
dv9074cl on the left

The stability to the vantage point will satisfy the demands on multimedia notebooks.

Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Stability to the vantage point HP Pavilion dv9074cl

Performance

The HP Pavilion dv9074cl is equipped with a dual core AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 1.8GHz CPU. Together with two fast 1GB RAMs by Nanya clocked at 667 MHz this notebook's performance was at least equal to the dv9033cl and even outperformed the dv9033cl in some aspects.

A GeForce Go 7600 is responsible for graphics. All together this equipment is fit for office and internet applications and even for some older not so demanding games.

The reviewed notebook came with two 100GB HDDs by Seagate. Their data transfer rate and access time are pretty good.

Further information about the video card can be found  here or in our comparison of mobile video cards. Detailed information about the AMD 64X2 CPU can be found here.

Please also look at our benchmark list of mobile processors or at our benchmark list of mobile video cards, in order to compare this notebook to other configurations.

HP Pavilion dv9074cl Benchmark
Benchmark Comparison 3DMark
Benchmark Comparison PCMark
3DMark 2001SE Standard
16678 points
3DMark 03 Standard
8073 points
3DMark 05 Standard
3588 points
3DMark 06 Score Unknown Setting
2230 points
Help
PCMark 04 Standard
5011 points
PCMark 05 Standard
4001 points
Help
200 GB - 5400 rpm
Transfer Rate Minimum: 20.4 MB/s
Transfer Rate Maximum: 41.7 MB/s
Transfer Rate Average: 32.2 MB/s
Access Time: 15.6 ms
Burst Rate: 104.6 MB/s
CPU Usage: 4.5 %
Core Duo T2300E
Turion 64 X2 TL-56
HP Pavilion dv9033cl (Core Duo T2300E) HP Pavilion dv9074cl (Turion 64 X2 TL-56)
Windows XP boot up 47s 50s
HP QuickPlay boot up 22s 26s
PCLinuxOS 2007 TR4 boot up 2min29s 2min14s
SLAX Linux (w/o GUI) boot up 50s 36s
loading a saved game HoMM V 21s 21s
MOV to MPEG conversion (on battery, 109MB) 1min18s 1min44s
MOV to DivX conversion (on PSA, 109MB) 1min12s 1min14s
installing .NET Framework 2.0 2min11s 2min21s
Aquamark benchmark 60516points 57197points
x3: Reunion benchmark 29.426fps 29.271fps
WinRAR benchmark 794KB/s 817KB/s

Emissions

Loudness

Under load the fan starts running immediately and reaches a noise level of 38.8dB. With graphic intensive applications the noise level exceeds 41dB.

Also the HDD's head parking is quite audible. The Hitachi-LG DVD drive is generally not too loud. It reaches a noise level of 35.3dB during video playback.

Noise Level

Idle
33.9 / 38.8 / 35 dB(A)
HDD
34.6 dB(A)
DVD
35.3 / dB(A)
Load
0 / 41.2 dB(A)
  red to green bar
 
 
30 dB
silent
40 dB(A)
audible
50 dB(A)
loud
 
min: dark, med: mid, max: light    (15 cm distance)

Temperature

The HP Pavilion dv9074cl too gets quickly hot. The slim case constricts the air flow inside the notebook and, so, leads to higher surface temperature. Furthermore, also the second harddisk contributes to the temperature increase.

Upper side

palmwrist: 43.3°C max: 47.5°C avg: 40.8°C

Bottom side

max: 52.5°C avg: 41.1°C

Speakers

The dv9074cl is equipped with Altec Lansing speakers. Despite of low power consumption, their sound is clear and rich, the maximum volume more or less alright.

Battery Runtime

The Pavilion dv9074cl is equipped with an 8-cell battery with a 4400mAh (63Wh) capacity. In practice you can expect a runtime of about two or three hours. Considering it is a DTR with a quite powerful video card, the battery runtime is very good.

Battery Runtime
Idle (without WLAN, min brightness)
3h 03min
DVD
2h 00min
Load (maximum brightness)
2h 08min
Power Consumption
Off / Standbydarklight 0 / 0 Watt
Idledarkmidlight 35 / 39 / 41 Watt
Load midlight 83.8 / 75 Watt
 color bar
Key: min: dark, med: mid, max: light        
Currently we use the Metrahit Energy, a professional single phase power quality and energy measurement digital multimeter, for our measurements. Find out more about it here. All of our test methods can be found here.

Verdict

Much to our surprise, the Pavilion dv9074 with Turion 64 X2 outperformed the dv9033cl with Intel Core Duo CPU in many aspects.

Furthermore, the dv9074 is quieter, gets less warm, but has a slightly shorter battery run time than the dv9033cl.

Its Quanta display is quite bright, with good illumination and good stability to the vantage point.

Many thanks to our partners of Notebookcheck Polen for this review.

HP Pavilion dv9074cl
HP Pavilion dv9074cl
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HP Pavilion dv9074cl
Reviewed: HP Pavilion dv9074cl

Specifications

HP dv9074cl
Graphics adapter
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 - 256 MB VRAM
Memory
512 MB 
, Nanya DDR2-667 2 GB DDR2 maks. 4 GB
Display
17.10 inch 16:10, 1440 x 900 pixel, WXGA+ High Definition BrightView (Quanta QD17TL026)
Storage
200 GB - 5400 rpm, 200 GB 
, 5400 rpm, 2x Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST9100828AS: 200GB, 5400rpm
Connections
4x USB 2.0, VGA, wej¶cie mikrofonowe, 2x wyj¶cie s³uchawkowe (1x SPDIF), FireWire 1394, RJ-11, RJ-45, S-Video
Size
height x width x depth (in mm): 40 x 385 x 295 ( = 1.57 x 15.16 x 11.61 in)
Battery
, litowo-jonowy 4400 mAh (64 Wh)
Additional features
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6100 (C51MV), HDD: 200GB, 5400rpm, 2x Seagate Momentus 5400.3 ST9100828AS, Conexant Cx20549 @ nVIDIA nForce 430 (MCP51) - HD audio, Hitachi-LG HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4084N,
Weight
3.54 kg ( = 124.87 oz / 7.8 pounds) ( = 0 oz / 0 pounds)
Price
5478 Euro

 

The Pavilion dv9074cl looks good.
Among them an external TV tuner...
There are numerous accessories included.
Despite of not being very capacious, the battery provides a runtime of 2 to 3 hours.
A WLan switch is available.
The opening mechanism of the notebook is not very user-friendly.
The brightness and the stability to the vantage point of the glossy Quanta screen are excellent.
...but a numerical keypad is provided.
The keyboard is very similar to those of the Pavilion dv6000 series...
The touchpad can be deactivated by a little button, when needed.
The dv9074cl lacks an HDMI port.
Most of the interfaces are located at the left side.
The slim case is difficult to cool.
The workmanship is not perfect.
Piano coating was used.
...which is ready for use.

Pro

  • Good look
  • Bright picture
  • Broad viewing angles in both aspects
  • Capacious and fast hard drives
  • Long battery run time
  • Accessories
  • Contra

  • Heating of the base unit
  • Workmanship
  • Touchpad
  • No HDMI port
  • Similar Notebooks

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