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The 13-inch laptop market has seen steady movement over the past year with the release of a quite a few products from manufacturers like HP, Dell, Toshiba and Sony. The one laptop that's been dominant in this space has been Dell’s XPS M1330, which has won much acclaim for its sleek design and great performance.

HP recently introduced the DV3005, which due to its positioning is a direct competitor to Dell’s offering. Let’s find out how it fares.

One thing I have always enjoyed about HP has been the consistency of their designs, over the last few years, with regard to their DV series. All of these laptops have the same “HP imprint” lid and body finish: a glossy tough plastic finish with a limited variety of colors. The DV3005 follows this design philosophy strictly and offers only a basic though fairly attractive black finish.This is prevalent for both the lid and the underside of the laptop.

In build quality, the DV3005 fares well as the construction material used is very sturdy. There was no audible squeak anywhere from the body or the hinges. The only downside is that its glossy surface will attract fingerprints. Weight-wise the laptop is around 2.35 kg, which is a bit on the heavy side but nothing that one can’t live with.

The keyboard area of the DV3005, however, startled me a bit. In a major departure from the past, HP has chosen to equip this model with a very shiny metallic finish, similar to a slab of iron. This is astonishing, as this finish is very reflective and can easily double as a mirror. If this is HP’s attempt at giving the laptop some bling, it fails miserably.

The finish has another drawback in that, apart from being a fingerprint magnet, it can get scratched easily. This was apparent on our test piece, which had a number of tiny but visible scratches. While these do occur on other laptops to, on this particular finish they stand out like pimples on the face of a beauty queen. Not pretty.

The metallic finish is not restricted to the area around the keyboard. It has been used on the keys too. However, this has not affected the typing experience, as the keys are well-textured and offer good feedback. Furthermore the keys are a little elevated, as compared to standard sets, and this allows for rapid typing without fatigue.

Sadly, the touchpad of the DV3005 is a disappointment. Its texture is a little too smooth, leading to imprecise mouse control, and the mouse buttons sometimes don’t register clicks.

The underside of the keyboard sports speakers from Altec Lansing. The speakers themselves are not much to rave about. Sound quality was restrained at best, but behaved admirably at higher volumes, with good clear highs and lows with a bit of under-driving on the mids.