The HP Pavilion dv6-3143cl ($799.99 list at Costco) is a 15.6-inch desktop replacement laptop that comes with a Blu-ray drive and decent battery life. HP has kept the price down by giving it a slower processor than other premium laptops (in this case, an AMD Phenom II N640 dual-core CPU) and leaving the graphics integrated. If you're looking for a device to fulfill your Web surfing and multimedia needs for a reasonable price then the dv6-3143, available from Costco, deserves a second look.

Design
The dv6-3143cl has a dark blue coloring accented by a shiny plastic design on its fingerprint-resistant resin lid and palm rest. Lately, HP has been incorporating metal into its laptop designs as seen in the HP Pavilion dv6-3163cl ($899.99 list, 3.5 stars) and HP Pavilion dv6-3033cl ($899.99 list 3.5 stars), but has kept to a more inexpensive plastic structure in this system. The dv6-3143cl keeps it light, weighing in at 5.3 pounds, the same as the HP dv6-3163cl.

The keyboard is chiclet-style, and each key has a smooth, matte finish, making for a comfortable typing experience. Number crunchers will be at a loss, as there's no numeric pad to the right of the full-sized keyboard; HP decided that quick keys that bring up Web browsing, e-mail, and calculator were a better use of space. While I found the touchpad running fairly smooth on this HP laptop, others have found the touchpad on other HP laptops to be jumpy. If you do find it a problem, HP has released a driver fix that will mute some of the problems. Alternatively, a good self-fix is to use the one-finger click touch method to avoid any multitouch jumping or stuttering. The mouse buttons are integrated into the touchpad, similar to the setup found on the MacBook Pro ($1,799 direct, 4 stars) HP also decided to do away with a scroll on the touchpad that could make for easy navigation.

Screen resolution is 1,366 by 768, which is fine for 720p playback, but you'll have to use the HDMI port if you want to make good use of the Blu-ray player to display video in true 1080p HD on your HDTV or monitor.

Features
The system has an array of connectivity ports: HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, two USB 2.0 ports, a USB/eSATA combo port, 5-in-1 card reader, headphone and microphone ports, and a Blu-ray drive. It's pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium and includes HP's own dock on the top of the desktop, which has quick links to HP's download center and movie player. The dv6-3143cl has the standard 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 640 GB, 5,400rpm hard drive, which gives you more space than the HP Pavilion dv6-3123cl ($599.99, 3.5 stars) that has a 500 GB, 5,400 rpm hard drive.

There's a fair amount of bloatware, including game trials, as well as a shortcut to eBay. HP also included a TruVision Webcam and outfitted the speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio. The sound is nothing dynamic, but it does the job. External speakers are recommended if you need more power.

Since this laptop is from Costco, it comes with a two-year warranty as well as Costco's Concierges Services. These services include troubleshooting and setup support for anyone who has bought electronic devices from Costco.

Performance
The dv6-3143cl is equipped with a 2.9GHz AMD Phenom II processor that helped it finish with a 4,482 score in our PCMark Vantage test, over 900 points better than the dv6-3123cl, with its 2.90 GHz. AMD Athlon II CPU. However, it lags behind systems like the Intel Core i3-350M-equipped Acer Aspire TimelineX AS5820T-5951 ($723 street, 4 stars) (5,233) and the HP dv6-3163cl, which had an Intel Core i5-460M CPU (5,965).

The laptop ran fairly well on our Handbrake test (3 minutes 8 seconds), but was fairly slow at Photoshop (6:48). The integrated graphics, powered by an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 420 were unable to run both our Crysis DX10 and Lost Planet 2 DX9 tests. So, while you can certainly run multimedia tasks and have Blu-ray playback, don't plan on using the dv6-3143cl for extensive gaming.

The 6-cell, 55 watt hour battery ran for 4 hours 45 minutes on the MobileMark 2007 battery test, a similar score of the HP dv6-3163cl, which scored 4 hours 48 minutes. But it couldn't touch the battery life of the Toshiba Satellite T235-S1350 ($630 direct, 4 stars) (8:16) and Acer AS580T-5951 (7:37).

The HP Pavilion dv6-3143cl is filled with enough features to make this a worthy desktop replacement with a fairly decent processor and an array of expected features. The $799.99 is a great price for a laptop that includes a Blu-ray drive, especially considering that the HP dv6-3163cl is $100 more and only has a better processor to show for it. Compared with the Editor's Choice in this category, the HP Pavilion dv7-4083cl ($999.99 list, 4 stars), though, it is a skeletal system. The HP dv7-4083cl has a 17-inch screen, a Intel Core i5-450M and better graphics. The dv6-3143cl is a fair middle ground between the smaller hard drive-equipped HP dv6-3123cl and the gamer friendly HP dv7-4083cl.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS
Check out the test scores for the HP Pavilion dv6-3143cl

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the HP Pavilion dv6-3143cl with several other laptops side by side.