HP Pavilion DM1z Fusion

Each time a chip maker creates a new product which is a huge job in design, construction, quality control, continuous improvement, economies of scale, public relations, media management, marketing, distribution and so on. This makes the device something very specific in industry, and the more complex and less advanced competitors product. Throughout the chain mentioned above there is one point deliberately omitted to point out that although you do everything right, if the offense can go around the cliff. I refer to the supplement industry counterparts. The most popular model among manufacturers is that unbundled where you design the chip is not the same as factory, and that makes it not the same as what sells, and then that chip is on a motherboard to turn has its own logic chip which is designed by a company, made by another and integrated by the manufacturer. In the case of laptops often add additional steps that will put the final mark notebook crown a production that incorporates three or four players in the processor, two or three in the motherboard, another on the screen and one in the assembly of equipment, while other peripherals that are themselves third.

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In total, all the actors and their counterparts should be implicitly agree that a product reaches the shelves of a store and then to our hands. Throughout history many theoretically impeccable designs were unsuccessful because they failed to interest partners. Maybe they were good at engineering but bad at marketing, maybe a competitor offered better discounts or threatened to boycott the assemblers. What works for one does not work for others, and while Intel can get away with making chips, chipsets, motherboards gpu and other companies could fail trying to do everything yourself, as happened to 3DFX.

When AMD bought ATI was soon quite evident that the goal was to bring both expertise in a single product that integrates the CPU and GPU. That idea soon had a name and called Fusion, and it was so revolutionary that for 4 years and look forward to the double and uncertainty. First, uncertainty about its performance, its ability to meet expectations. Second, uncertainty assemblers. It was, at least in my case, the greatest concern. What if AMD generated a great product and system builders no attention to her? That can happen and only the consumer loses, but fortunately it was an unfounded fear.

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I have experienced the performance of Fusion in a Mini-ITX board and i am quite satisfied, but today i will add an extra degree of difficulty. When testing in a notebook Fusion join three factors that go almost unnoticed in a desktop motherboard, battery life, heat generation and noise.HP is currently the largest assembly of teams in the world, and offering a variety of products with AMD Fusion you are given high visibility to the brand and the product. It is not the only company. And Acer , Lenovo and Toshiba put their chips and other manufacturers have done much of motherboards. Everything is just fine for AMD.


In the case of HP, is not the first time they played in the signature green. Although never married with a manufacturer of CPUs in particular, AMD's share in its mix is on the rise. The model that we will review today is a continuation of the previous DM1 (known as dm1-2000) equipped with Turion II and Radeon HD 4225. The difference, of course, is that now both the processor and graphics chip are in the same package. The amount of CPU and GPU has been named APU.

Just as conceptual clarification, the APU from AMD is a processor that can handle both X86 and OpenGL instructions and tessellation (say). Not so. There is a GPU that is the Radeon HD6310 and a dual-core CPU that is the E305. Both interact to perfection but not the same.This was announced at CES2011 DM1z becoming the South American market in early March. The U.S. price is below USD 450 and for that price there are few notebooks that can offer dual-core processor, 720p, 3GB of RAM and Radeon HD6310 graphics card, to which we must add the bold promise of 9 hours of continuous operation.

First Look

Within the simple box containing a DM1z is right and necessary. In addition to a manual and warranty booklet, the content is limited to the shipper and the equipment itself.The team itself is pretty slim, sophisticated lines and a cover decorated with an artistic pattern.On the back we can see that only the battery stands, something natural in this segment equipment. The other option would be to incorporate a battery of lower capacity and I think nobody wants that, right?

A lateral view reveals the profile tip and a form of "streamlined" to finish off the back edge of the housing. The team opened reveals a thin silver-gray finish, a spacious keyboard and coated "gummy" which makes it very comfortable and, unfortunately, the same type of touchpad that we have been seeing for a while now, I do not finish like. The left profile view shows the inauguration, Kingston lock, air vent, two LEDs (Power, HDD), HDMI and USB output.

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The power button also changes location if compared with other ultra-portables, HP. In this case a large button on the left side.Here can be seen several highlights of the keyboard. The caps lock key has its own light (not the first notebook to incorporate it, but thanks). The shift (in fact two shifts) are of normal size. The spacing between keys allows a person with normal fingers typing at full speed, something not achieved by enlarging the keys and putting them close together. The finish is slightly rubbery, soft at the same time allowing final.



The upper edge of the screen has a webcam and microphone integrated digital.The right side shows a flash card multi selector, the headphone output, 2 USB and DB15 or VGA output. Although not very noticeable, it is also worth mentioning that the function keys come standard with your choice. I mean its native operation is up and down volume, handle light, etc. If you want to use as you press F1 to F12 Fn. It may not be to everyone's taste but I found it brilliant. As you can see, there are LEDs indicating whether or not WiFi enabled and sound.An approach to edge the screen shows the computer name, the characteristics of the hinge and finish "spoiler" of the case. Disassembling the battery can be seen even better its relative size. It is a size that we have used HP lately, and if not checked it is likely to be interchangeable with other mini DM1 or even some 311.


Finally, the front edge has Altec Lansing speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio. One detail that HP has incorporated several of its models and is a pleasure to hear.Finally, the first ignition leads HP in 2 seconds QuickWeb, instant-on system that comes loaded in the BIOS and is based on Splashtop, in turn based on Linux. Includes email client, browser, music and photo playback.You can continue loading Windows if you do not like QuickWeb or go to occupy it for anything more sophisticated. In fact you can tell that does not happen again by Splashtop.

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Sound, Microphone & Webcam

Sound is very high quality and loud, thanks to the stereo Altec Lansing speakers running across the bottom front of the machine. I could fill my entire 3 room apartment with music without getting close to the maximum volume level. I didn’t notice much or any distortion when the music was loud.The webcam seemed decent enough. You can record motion up to 640 x 480 and at least in the webcam window the image looked sharp with no noise with decent lighting. You can get a pretty decent image with low lighting but noise creeps in. Microphone worked great out of the box without having to do anything. I tested this with Audacity and there was zero noise and my voice was very clear.




Keyboard & Touchpad

First the keyboard. Compared to your average 10-inch netbook, the keyboard is slightly more roomy but even so it takes a little getting used to as it is not as large as it could be with large enough gaps on each side of the keyboard – a problem which seems to plaque most 11-inch sized laptops. Besides the size, the quality and feel of the keys are excellent. No flex at all and the keys are slightly curved to grip your fingers. On the last generation Pavilion DM1, I found the icons on the keys to be a little small and hard to see in low light situations and it is the same here.

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Now the trackpad. Again, there is no change from the last generation Pavilion DM1. The trackpad has ample space and shares the same metallic, not that slick surface as the rest of the inside chassis. The sensitivity is quite pleasant and multi touch scrolling works fine. The buttons on the other hand have not been improved. They are hard to press and are quite loud. You can get around this by clicking towards the insides of the buttons for a more softer, quieter press but you can have get used to doing this.

I did encounter software bugs however. Brightness hotkeys don’t function after resuming from sleep. Brightness are jumpy (jumps up or down multiple brightness steps) when running games or running certain programs like my color calibrator, and Wi-Fi button would not turn Wi-Fi on. Updating to the latest BIOS (F.13A dated 8/13) only fixed the Wi-Fi button.

Display

A decent, bright display. Nothing out of the ordinary with viewing angles, contrast and coloring but then again I don’t have anything else to directly compare to. Brightness goes up to 234 cd/m2 so I was spending all my time on the first 1 – 3 notches of brightness when indoors. Light colors are hard to see – I can barely make out the borders of input boxes of WordPress and Disqus for example, but this is common on many notebook displays. The lid folds back enough so you don’t have to worry about not getting an optimal viewing angle.

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Just one word of warning. I would be wary of using an 11.6-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution as a main work display or for people with bad eyesight. The resolution may be taxing on the eyes day in and day out, looking at it hours on end.

Upgrades

Like most other laptops that aren’t 10-inch netbooks, the HP Pavilion DM1z is easily upgradable via an access panel on the back. You’ve got access to the 2.5″ SATA 7200RPM hard drive, one RAM slot (the other is inside – don’t know if it’s soldered on), an empty mini PCI-e slot (no header though, so it’s useless) and a half sized mini PCI-e slot that is filled with the Wi-Fi card. It’s 3G ready with a SIM card slot in the back behind the battery, though depending on the reigon you may or may not get 3G built in.


Performance

First, video playback. It seems the ATI Radeon HD 4225 cannot take advantage of Flash 10.1 hardware acceleration. Out of the box with Flash 10.1 YouTube 1080p was chugging along with 60% – 100% CPU usage with playback looking slightly choppy with some videos (a few looked okay). 720p played smoothly (windowed and fullscreen) but with a similar amount of CPU usage. Upgrading the ATI Catalyst graphics software twice over a couple of months did not fix the issue either.

Playback of 1080p movie trailers was flawless with CPU usage hovering between 10 – 30%. CPU usage remained a little higher at 20 – 30% when outputting to a 1080p resolution display via HDMI but playback was smooth. Games – looking at the latest round of low end ultrathin notebooks on the market you’ve got these AMD powered ones with ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics and Intel’s lineup with HD graphics. AMD’s notebooks will offer better graphics performance over Intel’s

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Battery Life

AMD has made big improvements in performance with their latest ultrathin platform but battery life is still relatively poor and only a small improvement over the previous AMD platform, as seen in the comparison chart below.I gave it a run during my workday and just managed to squeeze out exactly 4 hours on 20% brightness. That’s all web browsing with Wi-Fi on and one viewing of a 10 minute YouTube video. Mind you, all Windows 7 notebooks go into hibernation at 7% remaining battery life so power users will no doubt squeeze out a little more. Watching a 480p full screen video with Wi-Fi off will squeeze out just over 3.5 hours (3:43)

Specifications

1. Netbook HP Pavilion DM1z
2. Processor E350 AMD Dual-Core 1.6 Ghz
3. Memory 3 GB PC3-8500
4. Chipset AMD Grass
5. Video Card AMD Radeon HD6310
6. Storage 320GB, 7200 RPM, 2.5 ", SATAII
7. Display HP Brightview 11.6 "1366 x 768, LED-backlit
8. Wireless Network Card Ralink RT5390 802.11 b / g / n
9. Bluetooth 2.1
10. Battery HP Li-Ion 6-cell 55Wh, up to 9 hours
11. Operating Systems Microsoft Windows 7 Starter / HP QuickWeb
12. Size 289 (L) x 213 (A) x 20-30 (H) mm
13. Mass without magazine 1.54 kg

With regard to the available ports and peripherals may highlight Altec Lansing and it has HDMI output with this Mini.

• Video Output VGA and HDMI
• Input / output audio Headphones
• Webcam Microphone MP 1.3
• Speakers Altec Lansing with Dolby Stereo Sound
• Kensington Lock Yes
• Data 3 USB 2.0
• Card Reader SD, MMC, MS / Pro, XD
• Gigabit LAN

Models from which our users might face a choice eventually. These models are:

• HP Pavilion dm1-2000 : The precursor of dm1-fusion, equipped with Turion II and Radeon HD 4225
• X140 LG : Equipped with Pine Trail Atom, Intel solution with Integrated Graphics
• NF310-A01 Samsung : Equipped with dual-core Atom Pine Trail, just above but matched in nuclei to dm1
• HP Mini 311-1160LA : Equipped with NVIDIA ION

It is likely that both the X140 and the Mini 311 are disadvantaged by their status as single core, partially offset by the hyper-threading. Anyway, the reader is asked to bear in mind this condition.



Users experience and Conclusion

This device comes to market (or rather will, as it still is not offered on this side of the world) preceded by many promises. First, it is a technology that AMD is holding all the chips played five years of losses. Second does not bring an unknown manufacturer of Bhutan but also the largest assembly of world. Third, the specific team promises to be wonderful. We split. "9 hours of battery life? Yes and no. Watching videos, browsing with Wifi and play some SC2, I lasted less than that. Were 6 hours and fraction. Still really awesome and is the first product from AMD to show a comparable consumption Atom. That makes me think that a mono-core Fusion platform, with less frequency and lower voltage can be a lifesaver for the X86 tablets, but that's going to another topic.

Now, we should crucify them for that last 6 hours and not 9. Not really, because those 9 hours, the test measured with no wireless and no activity, in which case maybe it is true. But, and is bold because it is a big but, just in case I took the computer for several HP QuickWeb hours, which is this SplashTop painted with the colors of HP. Wi-Fi surfed for hours, watching videos and all. The battery charge decreased linearly to 10% per hour, but to approach 10% and could not navigate. Whereas these were not nearly 9 hours to run, and that an extra effort in turning off and on, ok, in reality if you can browse QuickWeb 9 hours or more.

The screen quality is another point to consider. For many glossy screens are a resounding NO. Before, I thought the same, but HP LED screens is not the first time that I am amazed by the life of their colors. They have, however, a problem with the angles. A viewer located outside the cone of 45% perpendicular to the screen, you see the gradient colors but the effect is more noticeable vertical than the horizontal. Follow. Graphic section, the notebook is not the monsters level gamer Alienware and Asus , but we are talking about another price. The fact is that mainly because of its compatibility with DX11 and good management of SM3, this notebook can play much more fluidly than any other model with integrated video we've tested. It is difficult to quantify this, but we can say that it is impossible to play Stalker: Call of Pirypat in 1366 x 768 so we do not include this test. Instead, we were able to play SC2 with low quality textures. With that earned my eternal love.


In other respects, sound, weight, temperature, noise, has a satisfactory performance. Maybe I would prefer a louder fan to change to warm less, but that goes for everyone. I can say that to test this notebook I think of how AMD took 5 years to generate the product you dreamed of making when they called for the first time ATI and asked "how much better your business?." 5 years is a long time and in between spent several generations of processors, but AMD maintained its north and its motto: "The Future is Fusion." It was true. The product is everything they promised it would be and more. It is an economical (it integrates 3 functions in one package) of low power consumption yet high computing power and outstanding graphics performance. AMD has a winner here in the paper may look like the Atom Pine Trail (CPU, NB IGP and in the same package), but it works very differently. AMD product really deserves to be called different because it works differently. The APU works better than a CPU and a separate walk IGP.

His performance on tests that rely on intensive use of CPU show a slight disadvantage compared to the Turion II present in the Pavilion dm1-2000, but we think that processors are different segments. The APU E305 has a consumption that makes it comparable to the Atom and computing power comparable to a Pentium Neo CULV or dual-core Athlon. At this point there is no product that can offer the same combination of power and consumption.

In short, we go with the pros and cons

Pros:

1. Affordable price (USD 420 runs in USA) competitive with netbooks
2. Extended battery life
3. Graphics Power satisfactory
4. Computing power than any netbook, similar to the next step
5. Well thought out and comfortable keyboard

Cons:

1. Except for the temperature, which seemed higher than ideal, I have nothing to criticize.