# My review of HP G6-2005AX laptop having AMD A8-4500M Trinity processor..



## akbsol (Jun 16, 2012)

Hi friends..

I have been browsing through shopping portals, review sites and forums such as this and when I couldn't afford any more delay, *I finally purchased this laptop HP G6-2005AX* yesterday. Though I had gone to Nehru Place, Delhi with the motive of returning with a Asus K53TA/X53TA but somehow ended up with this one which was my third choice after K53SM.

K53TA has almost disappeared from the market. There were a couple of small retailers who offered the single pieces of K/X53TA left with them for Rs. 26500-27000 after some bargaining but it seemed like they might have been demo models placed in the showrooms which they wanted to dispose of. And I wouldn't have gone for anything but a seal packed one. Besides the thought of HP having a better CPU n GPU was always popping up in my mind. I went to 4 HP exclusive showrooms and in 2 of those, people were closing in deal of 2005AX which gave me some more confidence. No HP store came down from Rs. 32500 and that too after heavy bargaining and letting go the extra goodies. Finally I bought it for Rs. 31300 from a multi-brand retail showroom in NP. Came just with the bag and no extra stuff. So for about 4K extra I got newer (and hopefully better) CPU, better GPU, extra RAM, better screen (think so), genuine windows and a more visually appealing peace than X53TA. Though I can also vouch for the reliability of ASUS after having used its netbook for 1.5yrs. It just doesn't stop working no matter how bad I treat it. X53TA would have remained functional for much longer in my abusive hands  but i still decided to give HP another chance. I have used a Compaq AMD + Nvidia laptop for 3 yrs so I knew what to expect in terms of heat and all. More of the story later, let me show you some pics first:

Glossy surfaces add to the *class* but are fingerprint magnet. 

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2634.jpg

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2636.jpg

Keyboard layout is standard though I feel right shift key could have been made smaller to accommodate arrow keys in better way. *Small and nonuniform arrow keys* can take some time to get used to. Delete and backspace keys are also smaller than normal.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2638.jpg

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2642.jpg

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2640.jpg

I like the touchpad which is not ultra smooth and thus gives you a nice feel and response to your fingers. 

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2641.jpg

Now the *BLUNDER* as I see it.

The tiny *indicator LEDs (Power On and HDD) are placed in right side* near the charging socket. I don't see any reason why anyone would want to do that. There is no indicator light on the front side. I personally find it quite uncomfortable. When a application is taking some time to respond I have the habit to see the HDD led to confirm that something is happening. Now I have to rotate the laptop to see that LED. This is just not done. As a workaround I have installed the software based HDD activity indicator DiskLED which sits in tray and blinks just like the HDD LED.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2643.jpg

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/hdd.gif

*Speakers are Okaish* and are audible enough on full volume if there are no big noises around. My previous Compaq's Altec ones were much better.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2648.jpg

Back side has one big cover to hide the RAM, Wifi and HDD. The system comes pre-installed with Win7 Home Basic 64 Bit, Office 2010 Starter and Norton trial. There was *no driver CD or any other CD in the box* and all drivers were pre-installed. The drivers are available on HP site though. There is a recovery partition given if you wish to restore the system to its original status or repair your windows.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2646.jpg

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/100_2647.jpg

The *bios of this laptop is the most limited one* I have even seen in a laptop or desktop. You can only change date, time, boot options, password etc. No CPU, RAM frequency-voltage etc options if you were hoping for them. And if you are a geek and planning to play around with overclocking, undervolting and stuff like that, I must tell you that *no current software tools like k10stat, gpu-z etc etc work on this system*. A8-4500M is not K10 and has a new CPU architecture. Its also possible that AMD might have locked the over-clocking abilities in the new design to facilitate the in-built turbo/auto-clocking features. As the CPU is a fairly new offering, it might take some time before you see some software tools which can play with it.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/cpu.gif

Shows *2 display adapters and how they work together is another mystery* which I shall discuss in detail in another post.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/gpu.gif

If you are from Intel background, I must tell you that *AMDs are definitely a hotter sort*. But its not much of a problem if the laptop manufacturer is apt enough to design good cooling mechanism inside their laptops. For this reason you won't notice much difference in heat output of a contemporary ASUS+AMD combo vs any Core i system. But HP is not that in this regard. For same AMD system, a HP laptop will produce more heat than a ASUS. I can keep my cousin's Dell i5 on bed and load it as much as possible for hours without any problems but with HP+AMD you have to make sure that you don't block the vents (which happens when you place your laptop on bed). If you keep the space around vent clear then this piece also won't cause you any issues. Today its 45C in Delhi. Without AC in the room this laptop stayed at *41C at idle*. After opening 30+ webpages in Opera, the temp rose to 45C and kept fluctuating between 45-51C while I browsed through them and did other normal stuff like software installations, file copying etc.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/idle.gif

I don't have any recent 3D games at present so in order to test the system's graphic and CPU abilities, I opened 15 more tabs in opera including a 720p music video in Youtube. Then *started 3 instances of VLC, 2 of them playing full HD 1080 movies and one a 720 one, all simultaneously*. Everything was playing smoothly. But this was the limit. The vids started jerking when I tried to play another HD movie in 4th VLC instance  but still I could do normal work in background while all these heavy things were going on. Sorry guys I don't have any benchmarking suites or games to give you any concrete numbers. But the *system is quite powerful*. As far as temperatures are concerned, they *rose to around 71C* while I was playing all that. Giving the vent more space lowered it a bit to 68C. In AC things might run cooler than this or use a cooling pad when you do such heavyweight stuff.

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/load.gif

One thing I noticed is that *this laptop has a higher spec RAM than normal*.  A 1600 Mhz one instead of the usual 1333 Mhz. I wonder its gonna cost a bit more to upgrade the RAM to 8GB. Can anyone point me to a available identical spec 4GB module (same CAS latency ??) ?

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/ram.gif

*i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p546/g62005ax/system.gif

I will post more about the switchable dual GFX of this system and the confusions I have regarding it. In the mean time if you have any questions about the laptop feel free to post and I will be glad to reply back.

-Regards,
Akash


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## coderunknown (Jun 16, 2012)

*Re: Best bang for the buck Laptop for Under 30K*

@akbsol, great review 
So does this laptop gets hot? at least the keyboard section?

BTW what extra goodies the laptop shipped with? other than the bag.

also what is the battery life? i calculated the battery life from data given by games goblin to be around 3-3:30 when playing video. so what can we expect when browsing web/word editing.


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## rish1 (Jun 16, 2012)

*Re: Best bang for the buck Laptop for Under 30K*

wow man .. 
great review i am almost going to buy the lappy tomorrow . i contacted a dealer he was quoting price as 31k for today he said his prices are based on dollar so could fluctuate.
and on monday here or sunday in greece is elections if greek takes exit dollar is expected to hit rs 58 to rs 60.
my exams arent over yet but i have 2 days holidays for that i am thinking of buying tomorrw only with that additional warranty .

did you purchased the warranty ?? 


by the way after having tested the laptop what are your views i mean would you suggest me to go for it .

i will be using it for 
1) gaming ( i'll buy a cooling pad for sure for this)

all i want is that while watching 1 full hd movie for 3 hrs ( no multiviewing movies) it should not heat thats it .


2)other general stuff like web browsing , ms office but will be using it for prolonged hours

2) how do you find the display quality

thanks bro for your pics and review 
and yes i wont be touching it without getting it laminated.


it is going to be my first laptop so dont have much knowledge about purchasing.

should i demand a seal packed laptop like there is seal on mobile phones . 

and also the warranty you got is accidental damage right ?

and how many ram modules is it 2 x 2gb ( acc to flipkart ) or 1 x 4 gb 

and yes if possible please download 3dmark 11 and run this benchmark

and also what about coolsense ? i heard there are few modes in the coolest mode the fan dont stop unless the temp goes below 40 c

again thanks


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## akbsol (Jun 16, 2012)

*Re: Best bang for the buck Laptop for Under 30K*



Sam said:


> @akbsol, great review
> So does this laptop gets hot? at least the keyboard section?
> 
> BTW what extra goodies the laptop shipped with? other than the bag.



Thanks Sam. Laptop gets hot only when some CPU-GPU intensive task/game is running but only at the vent and the base portion near it. You wouldn't want to put it on your lap at that time . I didn't notice any heating on the keyboard and touchpad area. Normal works and movie viewing is just like any other non-gaming laptops. I think there won't be any unusual heating in everyday casual working though I am still testing it.

Laptop wasn't shipped. I bought it from market. After a lot of bargaining the store sales guy offered the laptop @ 31600 with a MTS dongle, headphone-mic, mouse and a cheapo cooling pad. I struggled a little more with him and after taking his managers approval he agreed at 31300 without these goodies. I didn't need these things so I was more concerned at getting it for as less as possible. I wasn't getting it any cheaper in NP which is a wholesale computer market in Delhi so closed the deal at that.

Also there is a Rs. 1133 HP 1 yr extended warranty offer going on this model till July which helped me make up my mind. I hope my decision doesn't disappoint me in future.


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## akbsol (Jun 17, 2012)

*Re: Best bang for the buck Laptop for Under 30K*



Sam said:


> also what is the battery life? i calculated the battery life from data given by games goblin to be around 3-3:30 when playing video. so what can we expect when browsing web/word editing.



I am yet to do any extensive battery testing and calibration but I was on battery from 9pm onwards today at mid-low brightness with wifi on and downloading a movie at full 512 kbps. I was browsing and checking mails in between so the display was always on. At 11:50pm it was still saying 1.5 hours left before I plugged in. But I have changed the power options to reduce performance of everything to lowest when on battery.


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## magnet (Jun 17, 2012)

Akbsol nice purchase no doubt.I am eying one myself.But seeing the ultrabook details now planing to wait for it.Is  that too hit the market.I mean hp envt 6 series from amd?

Also on very idle usage how long the battery and are there any bloatwares in it which demands reformat?


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## Games Goblin (Jun 17, 2012)

Great review akbsol and congrats on your purchase! After reading through your experience, It's more or less similar to mine, after using it for 4 days.

Its a great buy for 31300 and no other laptop (in this price range) comes close to the all round performance offered by the 2005ax.

A doubt I have is if your BIOS was automatically updated? I turned on the laptop on Friday, and went to the next room while it was booting up; when I came back a few mins later I saw that it had not booted and a message had appeared "An important BIOS update is available and setup cannot continue as your laptop is not plugged into a power source. Please connect to a power source to continue." I just about finished reading this message and the laptop restarted itself ( i think there is a timer to restart if user did not give any input/if laptop is not connected to power). I didnt get any message like that ever since.

Did you get any update for BIOS?

PS: I replied to your PM, sorry for being late as I am logging back into TDF today after sometime


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## akbsol (Jun 17, 2012)

magnet said:


> Akbsol nice purchase no doubt.I am eying one myself.But seeing the ultrabook details now planing to wait for it.Is  that too hit the market.I mean hp envt 6 series from amd?
> 
> Also on very idle usage how long the battery and are there any bloatwares in it which demands reformat?



Thanks magnet. I had fixed budget and models in mind so just didn't look for any ultrabooks in stores. You can check Flipkart. If its there then surely available in market too. They are quite fast in procuring and listing new models.

Though I haven't done any exhaustive battery testing, my laptop ran for 3 hours on battery yesterday with mid-low brightness while I was downloading content in background and surfing many websites and still showed 1.5 hours left before I plugged it in. So I feel it can easily stretch to 4.5-5 hours in power saving mode.

None in comparison to how Dell bloats theirs. There are some HP utilities installed which are beneficial and non-counterproductive in nature like Coolsense, Driveguard and Recovery tools. Norton trial is installed which I absolutely hate so I replaced it with Avast. You won't be needing a reformat.


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## coderunknown (Jun 18, 2012)

^^ can't those utilities be downloaded from HP website and neither of your (akbsol & GG) laptop came with any kind of disc?


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## vipul619 (Jun 21, 2012)

Thank you so much for this review man.. 
the HP seems great, but now i will definitely go for the ASUS K53SM.
All doubts cleared.. 
Will review it as soon as i buy it (most prob by Sunday)..


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## akbsol (Jun 21, 2012)

vipul619 said:


> Thank you so much for this review man..
> the HP seems great, but now i will definitely go for the ASUS K53SM.
> All doubts cleared..
> Will review it as soon as i buy it (most prob by Sunday)..



All the best dude. K53SM is power packed machine and won't disappoint you in any areas. I was also so very confused between K53SM and this HP Trinity but picked the latter as it saved my 8-9K while getting a laptop with a better GPU and comparable CPU.

K53SM (ASUS + Intel + Nvidia) is a safe bet though.


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## vipul619 (Jun 22, 2012)

akbsol said:


> K53SM (ASUS + Intel + Nvidia) is a safe bet though.



Exactly why i'm going for this.
Since this is my first laptop EVER, i'm playing absolutely safe


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## coderunknown (Jul 6, 2012)

discussion thread created: HP G6 2005AX (powered by Trinity) Discussion Thread. Post there.


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## SGK (Jul 16, 2012)

Hi friends...
I bought this laptop 15days back.....heating is a issue but overall performance is quite good.
i have 3 queries:

1. Is it possible to overclock 1.9ghz to 2.5ghz???
2. How can i increase my RAM i.e. what frequency of RAM is used in this machine....1333mhz...???
3. Can i increase my graphics to 2gb with additional graphic card replacing original one....because max payne 3 runs slow in full quality..

Please advice.
Thanks in advance....


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## coderunknown (Jul 16, 2012)

SGK said:


> 1. Is it possible to overclock 1.9ghz to 2.5ghz???



not possible.



SGK said:


> 2. How can i increase my RAM i.e. what frequency of RAM is used in this machine....1333mhz...???



buy a stick of 4GB 1600Mhz ram and insert it into the second empty slot.



SGK said:


> 3. Can i increase my graphics to 2gb with additional graphic card replacing original one....because max payne 3 runs slow in full quality..



not possible neither will it have any effect on the graphics. are you sure laptop is set to high performance mode cause 7670 is more than capable of handling MP3 in high.


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## rish1 (Jul 16, 2012)

SGK said:


> Hi friends...
> 
> 1. Is it possible to overclock 1.9ghz to 2.5ghz???



possible till 2.3 ghz any frequency above that not possible at least right now..

use amd pscheck to force it to run  at 2.3 ghz constantly. it occasionaly hits 2.8 ghz but that is only with single core and for fraction of seconds
but it runs constantly at 2.3 ghz on all 4 cores
use hwinfo64 to check at what frequency is your system running.

for mp3 run it on high performance mode in switchable graphics option also try in crossfire mode .


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## akbsol (Jul 16, 2012)

rish said:


> possible till 2.3 ghz any frequency above that not possible at least right now..
> 
> use amd pscheck to force it to run  at 2.3 ghz constantly. it occasionaly hits 2.8 ghz but that is only with single core and for fraction of seconds
> but it runs constantly at 2.3 ghz on all 4 cores
> ...



There is no need to use pscheck for that as in high performance mode it stays constantly at 2.3 GHz.


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## vinod86 (Jul 19, 2012)

Hi Guys,

I am newbie and would like to know if this lappy is capable of running Autocad..  Awaiting your valuable advises..


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