I picked up a black DM1 the other day for 4600 CNY (676 dollars). I took a bit of a leap of faith getting it but as this is my 3rd HP and I have never had trouble with HP’s before I figured it would be ok to get another, in fact my aunt is still using my original HP that had a 20 gig hard drive and a 533mhz Celeron that I bought so many many many years ago.
I am happy to see my leap has worked out. Mine has the U4100 Pentium processor duo 1.3 ghz and 2 gigs ram running Windows 7 Ultimate on the 250 gb hard drive. I will bump that ram up to 4 gigs especially after installing antivirus software the ram usage hovers around 30 percent when idle.
First off I want to say, the touch pad is a pain in the neck. It is not glossy but sticky as if it were, a poor choice of surface. The buttons suck too, pushing the buttons from the edge at the center of the pad helps a lot.
The case is all plastic, there is no metal anywhere, or so it seems. But even with that I found it doesn't bother me, I would rather have the lower weight anyway. The keyboard has some flex in it on the left side but nothing that you would notice unless you were looking at it carefully enough to notice, when typing it is a none issue. The gray on silver FN. commands on the other hand is a questionable choice and I have to look down to find them, especially the volume ones, actually I would have preferred the keyboard to be black with white letterings which I find much easier to read.
There is no touch pad off button so it is easy to tap when typing, however I also notice this computer is a lot harder tap the touch pad than others I have used.
From this review I was expecting ultra loud speakers. I would call the volume just normal and if you turn it up to max there is obvious distortion sounds, but this is typical of every laptop I have used for the most part. The sound fidelity is a little better than others I have used but nothing shocking.
There is a lot of resolution on that screen and text can seem a little small, sometimes I find myself squinting. Also the screen is really really bright, I use it a few clicks down from max to keep my eyes from getting sore using it. The screen also has a slightly cold tint to the colors which is easily taken care of in calibration. The default setting is also a little lacking in contrast, an extra 5% helps.
I don't care for the power plug that juts out so straight from the computer and the power block is a wee bit big for the computer size but much smaller than previous notebooks I have owned. Also the white LED’s of the status lights (especially the power button) are really bright and slightly distracting.
The battery life is good for me, I used it for a good part of the day with the wifi on and medium brightness and still had a about 30% charge afterwards.
I was not expecting much in the performance area but am genuinely surprised at the usability of the dual core Pentium running at a puny 1.3 ghz. I run Photoshop CS4 and have found it more than usable. Processing RAW photos from my Canon 5D at 16 bit takes about 4 seconds from the RAW adjustment screen to opening in the Photoshop workspace. Respectable.
Also watching 720p mkv versions of Top Gear in KM Player I notice no stuttering in the video or refresh rate problems with the screen during the fast motion parts. Great.
Playing games is harder to consider. I got a lot of old games sitting around. Installed Stronghold Crusader and it ran fine though because it is not wide screen resolution it is small and squinty to play. Also loaded up Star Trek Armada, worked fine with everything at max but it is not a very intense game for hardware anyway. Command and Conquer Generals worked ok, with everything maxed out it is so so, not the best frame rates but playable with noticeable pauses in some things, turning off some of the exotic visual options helps a lot, though I dont think C&C Generals is a good benchmark because it never seemed to be optimized correctly for performance anyway. Homeworld 2 would not install because of issues with Win 7 so cant comment on that. Have not got around to installing Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War on it yet so cant speak for the more intense games but will have something to say about that later when I find my disks, though I am not extremely hopeful as even on my quad core PC with the good graphics card and 4gb ram this game can bring the system to its knees with everything maxed out and the battles get intense.
Windows 7 with all the Aero things on works flawlessly, no hiccups or anything.
Overall when I bought this I was looking for a cheaper end small notebook that was something better than a netbook that I could take around with me in a small shoulder bag and be able to keep connected and maybe do the occasional Photoshop tweak on the road. I am delighted to find the system more than beats my expectations and manages to be so compact. Overall, no regrets.
I am happy to see my leap has worked out. Mine has the U4100 Pentium processor duo 1.3 ghz and 2 gigs ram running Windows 7 Ultimate on the 250 gb hard drive. I will bump that ram up to 4 gigs especially after installing antivirus software the ram usage hovers around 30 percent when idle.
First off I want to say, the touch pad is a pain in the neck. It is not glossy but sticky as if it were, a poor choice of surface. The buttons suck too, pushing the buttons from the edge at the center of the pad helps a lot.
The case is all plastic, there is no metal anywhere, or so it seems. But even with that I found it doesn't bother me, I would rather have the lower weight anyway. The keyboard has some flex in it on the left side but nothing that you would notice unless you were looking at it carefully enough to notice, when typing it is a none issue. The gray on silver FN. commands on the other hand is a questionable choice and I have to look down to find them, especially the volume ones, actually I would have preferred the keyboard to be black with white letterings which I find much easier to read.
There is no touch pad off button so it is easy to tap when typing, however I also notice this computer is a lot harder tap the touch pad than others I have used.
From this review I was expecting ultra loud speakers. I would call the volume just normal and if you turn it up to max there is obvious distortion sounds, but this is typical of every laptop I have used for the most part. The sound fidelity is a little better than others I have used but nothing shocking.
There is a lot of resolution on that screen and text can seem a little small, sometimes I find myself squinting. Also the screen is really really bright, I use it a few clicks down from max to keep my eyes from getting sore using it. The screen also has a slightly cold tint to the colors which is easily taken care of in calibration. The default setting is also a little lacking in contrast, an extra 5% helps.
I don't care for the power plug that juts out so straight from the computer and the power block is a wee bit big for the computer size but much smaller than previous notebooks I have owned. Also the white LED’s of the status lights (especially the power button) are really bright and slightly distracting.
The battery life is good for me, I used it for a good part of the day with the wifi on and medium brightness and still had a about 30% charge afterwards.
I was not expecting much in the performance area but am genuinely surprised at the usability of the dual core Pentium running at a puny 1.3 ghz. I run Photoshop CS4 and have found it more than usable. Processing RAW photos from my Canon 5D at 16 bit takes about 4 seconds from the RAW adjustment screen to opening in the Photoshop workspace. Respectable.
Also watching 720p mkv versions of Top Gear in KM Player I notice no stuttering in the video or refresh rate problems with the screen during the fast motion parts. Great.
Playing games is harder to consider. I got a lot of old games sitting around. Installed Stronghold Crusader and it ran fine though because it is not wide screen resolution it is small and squinty to play. Also loaded up Star Trek Armada, worked fine with everything at max but it is not a very intense game for hardware anyway. Command and Conquer Generals worked ok, with everything maxed out it is so so, not the best frame rates but playable with noticeable pauses in some things, turning off some of the exotic visual options helps a lot, though I dont think C&C Generals is a good benchmark because it never seemed to be optimized correctly for performance anyway. Homeworld 2 would not install because of issues with Win 7 so cant comment on that. Have not got around to installing Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War on it yet so cant speak for the more intense games but will have something to say about that later when I find my disks, though I am not extremely hopeful as even on my quad core PC with the good graphics card and 4gb ram this game can bring the system to its knees with everything maxed out and the battles get intense.
Windows 7 with all the Aero things on works flawlessly, no hiccups or anything.
Overall when I bought this I was looking for a cheaper end small notebook that was something better than a netbook that I could take around with me in a small shoulder bag and be able to keep connected and maybe do the occasional Photoshop tweak on the road. I am delighted to find the system more than beats my expectations and manages to be so compact. Overall, no regrets.
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