HP dm1z: Taking Fusion on the Road
by Dustin Sklavos on February 21, 2011 7:00 PM ESTAlmost There For Mobile Gaming
While the E-350 at least brings netbooks into the era of genuine usability and the Radeon HD 6310 is definitely a step up from the Nile platform's IGP, you'll see that unfortunately CPU performance isn't quite there yet.
In all cases the HD 6310 acquits itself fairly well compared to the other integrated parts, but CPU performance takes its pound of flesh. Bumping settings down can improve the situation (usually these lower-powered parts will hit bandwidth limitations at 720p and can come into their own at around 800x600) and at that point you're liable to see a substantial improvement over the Nile platform's Mobility Radeon HD 4225, but at the end of the day we're still pretty heavily processor limited.
Jarred's working on some additional gaming tests for his E-350 review, but the general rule of thumb is that you'll want to look at slightly older games (or very undemanding current games). As an example, the original Half-Life 2 runs reasonably well at 1366x768 and medium quality settings; move to the later episodes, however, and performance starts to drop into the 20s and teens—and don't even try bumping the shadow quality above "Low". Maybe now would be a good time to rediscover some of the gaming gems from before 2007?
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nitrousoxide - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
So first swap the HDD for a value SSD, then do a clean install :)Penti - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
Impossible to do without a retail copy of Windows. Or Volume licensed image. You'll have to go trough the trouble cleaning it up yourself if you want to run a legit copy of Windows.shtldr - Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - link
I have an ACER laptop with Win 7 Home Premium x64 OEM and I was able to swap out the drive for an SSD, then re-install the system (from a retail DVD I also own) using the key from the laptop chassis.The only pain was - I had to dial some MS phone number and dial in some numbers using the phone's keypad, then hear and write some numbers back to the activation window.
After doing this, the clean install of Windows reported it was genuine.
nitrousoxide - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
I've seen aother review from engadget with 'only' 6 hours heavy web browsing, wi-fi enabled.JarredWalton - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
Yes. We test with WiFi, not off of wired Ethernet. We repeatedly load four tabs in IE8 (AnandTech's old home page, MSN.com, Yahoo.com, and my Facebook page). All are saved versions stored on the AT web server, so they always appear the same, complete with Flash advertisements. IE8 is set to clear Temp files on exit, so the pages actually reload over WiFi each cycle of the test. Outside of video playback in YouTube, this is about as stressful as Internet surfing gets in my experience.Stuka87 - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
A net book that I can actually tell people "Yes you can get this model, and it wont be horrible!"This is actually a machine I would consider for myself if I didn't already have a MacBook and a Precision M4500. I just can't justify a third mobile machine when the MacBook handles the mobile side well, and the Precision handles the heavy work.
screamlordbyron - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
I've had one of these puppies for three weeks now. I've got to say that calling the dm1z a netbook does it s disservice. It certainly is not mobile gaming rig, but for business productivity, it is a fantastic subnote.I use it for word processing, excel, web research, light graphics editing, remote desktop, etc. No stutters, good battery life, good (albeit not excellent) screen, decent track pad, excellent keyboard.
For anyone but a gamer or graphic artist, who wants a small, light, affordable subnote, this thing is the bomb! :)
Computer Bottleneck - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
Are Tablets here to stay or are they merely a stepping stone ARM is using to get into Desktop/Laptop?The Mac Book Air video on the Apple website points to the better ergonomics of a keyboard and Apple's glass trackpad when using a LCD screen oriented in the vertical position.
Computer Bottleneck - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
My mistake here. I meant this comment to be in response to ganeshts's opening comment.erkerb - Monday, February 21, 2011 - link
Well, i jumped on the Netbook wagon about 3 years ago, and i am ready for an upgrade. AMD might be late, but remember being late is better then not showing to the fight at all.. Also there is still a demanding market out-there that i do not think AMD would be hurt that much. It'd be nice to see a USB 3.0, but at this price level and platform, it seems like a luxury addition. I would rather see more USB ports though.. I hope Anandtech will also give a shot to Lenovo Thinkpad X120e soon.