HP's Pavilion dv1000 line of notebooks is geared toward mobile entertainment, making them excellent systems for a college student or a home user who wants a decent laptop to take on vacations.

The dv1000's start at $774, a great price for a multimedia notebook, but you'll probably want some upgrades to the minimum configuration. The dv1000 includes only a 1.4GHz Intel Celeron M processor at baseline. You can upgrade to the maximum Celeron M at 1.5GHz for only $10, but it will cost you $125 to move up to a 1.6GHz Pentium M CPU.

Memory starts out at a minimal 256MB of DDR SDRAM. Luckily, the memory upgrades are reasonable-- you can double the RAM to 512MB for only $50 (or make it a single 512MB memory module for $75, leaving you room to add more in the future).

Hard drive space is pretty accommodating at 40GB and a 4200rpm drive. If you'll need more room to house all your MP3 files or game installations, you can beef it up to a 60GB drive for only $25. Another option is a faster 60GB 5400rpm drive for $50, giving you more room and speedier read and write times.

The default optical drive is a plain DVD-ROM drive: good for watching movies, but not much else. You can add CD-RW capabilities for $50, letting you burn audio and data CDs and watch DVD movies in the same drive.

If you want to create your own DVDs, you can opt for a DVD+/-RW drive with Double Layer support for only $100. HP even lets you add a LightScribe DVD+/-RW DL drive to your dv1000 for $125 so you can imprint professional labels on your media directly from the drive.

Although it's only 14 inches, the BrightView display on the dv1000 delivers excellent images at a sharp 1280 by 768 resolution. There's both a modem and network interface on the notebook, although wireless connectivity will cost you $25 extra (you can get both wireless and Bluetooth for $45, letting you also synch up to your Bluetooth devices).

The built-in 6-in-1 media card reader makes it simple to transfer photos from a digital camera, and the entire laptop weighs in at an easy-to-carry 5.33 pounds.

With a couple of choice upgrades, the HP Pavilion dv1000 can be a great all-around notebook for the entertainment-oriented mobile user.

Pro: Good starting price, bright display
Con: Some upgrades needed

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Compaq/Hewlett-Packard
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185
800-888-9909
http://www.hp.com

Warranty
1-year limited