HP dm1z: Taking Fusion on the Road
by Dustin Sklavos on February 21, 2011 7:00 PM ESTThe Netbook We've Been Waiting For
AMD may have taken its sweet time getting involved in the netbook race, but at least they're here now, and Brazos gives the market the leg up it's needed since the day ASUS introduced the first Eee PCs. The Bobcat core may not have been the homerun we were hoping for, but it's a fantastic start. We finally have netbooks that can pass my "Grandma Test": can it play 1080p video on YouTube and is it fast enough that your grandmother won't complain?
The only thing that hurts about using the dm1z, really, is the amount of bloatware it ships with from HP. That stuff can be uninstalled, though, and if you put a clean installation of Windows 7 on the dm1z you're going to find a surprisingly capable little computer that really screams past the Atom-based netbooks of old. It only felt sluggish when I was using it next to another computer with a mainstream or better processor; otherwise the dm1z was perfectly serviceable and a far cry from the waitfest that an Atom-based netbook can quickly become.
HP really nails the design and aesthetics of the dm1z, too. This is a sharp-looking netbook with premium looks, and in a nice change of pace HP ships it with a 7200RPM mechanical hard disk and 2GB of DDR3 standard. That may put it well over the price of competing Atom machines, but not far enough to not be a solid deal at $449—and let's not overlook the full Windows 7 Home Premium install (instead of Starter). The only major dents in the dm1z's armor are the poor screen and constantly running fan. At this price point these things are forgiveable, but in the case of the screen it doesn't mean we can't wish for better and continue haranguing manufacturers to improve what has quickly become the biggest problem with modern notebooks at any size.
The fly in the ointment is that while the E-350 is a step up, it's a long overdue one and it's not quite the huge one we needed. AMD has already announced that they'll be moving forward with CPUs that have four Bobcat cores, but we don't need more cores in the E-350; we need faster ones. I think it's fairly telling that manufacturers have largely ignored the other three Bobcat-based chips save maybe the C-50. Two cores are the sweet spot for this usage pattern, but really we need those cores to be running at faster clocks. (And sorry—there's no overclocking support for the dm1z at present.) For a first foray into this kind of territory, Brazos is a fantastic design and at least the E-350 brings some much needed life to the netbook market, but we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't continue to prod the industry and ask for more.
At the end, my experience with the HP dm1z was positive enough to recommend one to my mother to replace her aging HP tablet PC. It's responsive, runs cool, lasts a long time on the battery, and has a smart design. If I can recommend one to my mother, I can recommend one to you, and for that I think the dm1z (at least at $449) is worthy of a Silver Editors' Choice. At $399 and with a better screen, we'd be looking at Gold.
On a final note, this certainly isn't the last we'll hear about Brazos netbooks/laptops. We have several other reviews in the pipeline, and we'll be looking into the gaming potential and additional performance metrics in those reviews, along with a full platform comparison between CULV, Nile, Brazos, and Atom. Jarred already has a thread in the forums for requests, so chime in there if you have any specific areas you'd like to see addressed in the future articles.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
Funny thing is that I even reviewed something like that:http://www.anandtech.com/show/2503/2
$2000 ($2600 with a 1st-gen SSD) and you were still saddled with Intel's GMA X3100. Look at the performance scores in 3DMark03-06 and PCMark05; heck, it even has Cinebench 10 results in there. So today you get roughly the same performance as the old Core 2 Duo U7500, with six times the graphics performance, and about twice the relative battery life, all for one-fifth the price. That's a pretty good advancement for only three years!
swaaye - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
I think that in a 11.6" form factor you can do better. With this thing you're plunking down a good amount of money for some very basic performance. and GMA X3100 is not that much of an issue for most people. But if price is all that matters, sure this is a decent choice I suppose.I'd rather see Brazos used in a 9" netbook, myself. Really take advantage of its low power consumption and heat output.
Penti - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
You can, but not for 449 USD. Rember Atom netbooks costs as much if not more when they come with W7HP and Crystal HD accelerator. Especially if you want a bigger battery then some anemic 3-cell. There's even no need to special order this (bto). If you go down to ridiculous small batteries, there's literally not much of a point of it. If you want something like a ULV or normal Core i5 in it you will have to pay 250 USD just for the CPU, add 40 USD for chipset. Add in TFT-panel, motherboard pcb and associated components, wireless, hdd, battery, keyboard, touchpad, memory and case(charger etc) and it's already at about 750 for the cheapest possible configuration. Probably 800 in real world. I.e another product. Built in support for basics (today) such as H.264 and H.264 flash video acceleration is key here. Not that you almost can game on it. It replaces the dualcore higher end atom netbooks and makes them obsolete. With this setup your high-def online videos works, no matter if it's flash or netflix Sliverlight. Not so much on netbooks with atom, even with the Crystal HD accelerator. Adobe has real problems with those kinds of platforms till they have moved over to a real video oriented workflow like they are trying to do with stage video api. It solves todays needs.Hell it's even fast enough to do high res software decoded H.264 with CoreAVC. It's pretty important because you can't always muck about and reencode files and reencoding files takes a long time.
This is about filling and meeting the needs of the low-end. AMD can keep TSMC busy with these I suppose.
swaaye - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
I just dumped a HP 12.1" from 2009 which had a Turion Neo X2 1.6 GHz (faster than Brazos) with a discrete Radeon 3450. The Turion was not exactly snappy and the 3450 was pretty sad overall. It was passable yes, but not really impressive. I got it as a factory refurb for $450 but they retailed for around $800.silverblue - Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - link
There's a couple of differences. Brazos supports more instruction sets as well as a faster IMC (albeit single channel). The performance difference should be slight, if anything.swaaye - Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - link
According to another look at Brazos here on Anandtech, an Athlon 64 X2 at 1.5 GHz can be over 20% faster per clock in some applications. That's not slight. Sometimes they are similar, but then other times you see 20% slower which is quite ugly. A 1.5 GHz Athlon 64 X2 is already very slow.swaaye - Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - link
I shouldn't have said per clock. The comparison was an Athlon 64 X2 1.5 GHz vs. Brazos 1.6 GHz.fshaharyar - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
The build up to the fusion was very good. But I'd like to say they late by 6 months to the party.If they had intrudoced this product to the market 6 months back it would have stolen the Intel thunder and their would have been a huge shakeup in the netbook market.
But still not taking anything away from their success we will see better alternatives in the mobile market with this teck piece.
AMD will have ensure that they refresh there current gen proc. every 8-9 months.
with regards to their GPU refresh as well as plan their CPU strategy.
Hal2011 - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
NBS=No Glossy ClubWould love a new, little portable but waiting till manufacturers figure out that glossy screens are absolute crap. They are only there to hide the poor screen quality and to look good in the shop. Even on a cloudy day outside the local coffee shop, you still only look in a mirror. Hey, a mirror is more portable if I needed one! A small notebook is made to be used all over the place but these can't. Am I the only one?
cosmotic - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
"The only thing that hurts about using the dm1z, really, is the amount of bloatware it ships with from HP.""The only major dents in the dm1z's armor are the poor screen and constantly running fan."
"The only fly in the ointment is that while the E-350 is a step up, it's a long overdue one and it's not quite the huge one we needed." … "but we don't need more cores in the E-350; we need faster ones."
Sound's more like three problems instead of one.