HP Pavilion dm1 (dm1z)

Build and Design

The new HP Pavilion dm1 is an evolutionary update to last year's Pavilion dm1z and the dv2 from 2009. Stylistically, the dm1 has more in common with the dm3. In fact, if you place the new dm1 side by side with last year's dm3, you'll see that this 11-inch notebook is basically a smaller version of the dm3. Build quality is on par with what we've seen from the rest of the HP Pavilion Ultraportable notebooks and HP mini netbooks. The plastic screen lid provides adequate protection for the screen but the middle of the lid does bend inward under firm pressure (be careful jamming this into overhead compartments on your next flight). The lid also features an attractive matte black paint job with black pinstriping done in glossy paint.

HP Pavilion dm1 (dm1z) specifications: 

• AMD E-350 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics (dual-core CPU at 1.6 GHz and dual DX-11 SIMDs at 500 MHz)
• 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 HD glossy display with LED backlighting
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• 3 GB DDR3 memory
• 320 GB, 7200 rpm HDD (Hitachi Travelstar 7K500)
• Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n wireless
• Bluetooth 3.0 (Ralink Motorola BC8)
• 6-cell Li-ion battery (51Wh)
• Dimensions: 11.45 (L) x 8.45 (W) x 0.9 - 1.25 (H) inches
• Weight: 3.53 pounds
• MSRP: $449.99

 AMD's newest line of Fusion CPUs have landed inside one of HP's newest laptops: the Pavilion dm1z. This 11.6-inch laptop has fantastic battery life, excellent performance ratings and a really sleek design. The HP Pavilion dm1z measures 11.4 x 8.4 x 0.8-inches (lwh) and weighs about 3.5-pounds, making it extremely lightweight and portable. HP uses their CoolSense technology on this lapotp, which couples well-designed internals with a combination of external materials to reduce the head build-up inside. The full-size chiclet-keyboard is quite well-designed and is overall quite comfortable to use. There's a decent amount of connectivity options on the HP Pavilion dm1z, including three USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, HDMI out, an SD/MMC memory card reader and a single headphone/microphone combo port. Our model had the all-new AMD dual-core E-350 CPU (1.6GHz), which AMD calls a Fusion and includes both the CPU and discrete graphics system all on the same die. The graphics included is an AMD Radeon HD 6310M. Although no optical drive is built-in, HP does allow you to choose from two external drives, including one Blu-ray and DVD+/-RW combo drive. HP includes Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) with this notebook.

The new AMD Fusion CPU performed quite well in testing, especially compared to Intel Atom-based netbooks and notebooks. This new technology allows for a smaller price tag (this one is around $450) without sacrificing performance. The dm1z also features HP's CoolSense technology, which involves better part placement and design methodology. The dm1z is the first 11-inch laptop I've reviewed to use AMD's E-350 APU. The dm1z finished Handbrake, a video transcoding test, in 9 minutes 4 seconds, when netbooks like the NF310 and Mini 5103 couldn't even run the test. On SYSMark 2007, an overall performance gauge, the dm1z pulled in the highest score (57). The dm1z comes standard with 3GB of RAM, expandable to 8GB, which is more than any amount the Intel Atom processor can support.

In 3DMark06 tests, the dm1z (2,403) is light-years ahead of its Atom counterparts. It easily beat the Asus 1215N (5:40), Dell M101Z (4:30), and Lenovo X100e (5:23), all of which have similar batteries. AMD is now officially a contender in the netbook and cheap ultraportable space, and the HP Pavilion dm1z is the proof. Processor and graphics performance were never an issue with AMD processors; it was battery life that held it back from stardom. There's still a big demand for cheap ultraportable computing, and the dm1z, with its AMD Fusion APU, offers the best of both worlds: faster-than-Atom speeds and great battery life.