HP dm1z: Taking Fusion on the Road
by Dustin Sklavos on February 21, 2011 7:00 PM ESTThe Swankiest Netbook You Ever Did See
First we should make one thing clear: the HP dm1z is basically small enough and slow enough to be considered a netbook, with most of the good and bad connotations that term brings with it. With that in mind, the dm1z is a remarkably attractive piece of kit and as you'll see, in many ways it feels like the netbook finally arriving at about the form factor and performance level it always needed to be at.
The lid of the dm1z is a textured black plastic that is a healthy stride away from the glossy plastic hell that used to plague HP's older models; it's attractive and doesn't easily pick up fingerprints and smudges, and the HP logo is nice and subdued in the lower corner. There's a silver trim that extends around the lid and into the body.
When you pop open the dm1z, you'll see that trim matched with silver matte plastics on the screen bezel and tastefully framing the keyboard and touchpad. HP has made some really great strides as of late in improving the looks of their notebooks, and the dm1z continues that trend. The silver plastic is used for the interior surface along with the battery and rim of the system and is complemented by sparse usage of white LED indicator lights.
HP has been pushing a standardized chiclet-style keyboard across all of their lines at this point, and it suits the dm1z. The 11.6" form factor allows HP to squeeze a comfortable full-sized keyboard into the unit, too, with the document navigation keys helpfully and logically mapped to Fn+arrow key combinations. The keys aren't marked that way, but it's easy enough to figure out. There's no number lock either, but I've never found the 10-key wrangled onto the main keyboard to be particularly useful. The only complaints about the keyboard are minor ones: HP, like Dell, opts to default the function keys to controls and shortcuts (though this can be toggled in the UEFI), and the left and right arrow keys are basically double-sized compared to the up and down arrows. On the whole, though, this is a solid netbook keyboard that most people should be very comfortable with.
The touchpad is more of a mixed bag, but kudos to HP for actually using a separate piece of plastic for it instead of just building the sensor into the inside panel. Of course, there's a reason for that: HP is using the same clickpad that's dogged their mainstream notebooks over the past year. To be fair the HP implementation is among the better ones used for Windows-based systems, it's multitouch capable, and the tracking surface is comfortable, but we would still rather see dedicated buttons on future refreshes. If you're using an external mouse or keep brushing the touchpad (not a problem I had in testing it), you can actually double-tap the top left corner of the touchpad with your finger to disable it; a pinpoint orange LED will glow when the touchpad is disabled.
One of my favorite features of the dm1z is actually on the bottom. HP has gone a long way towards simplifying user upgrades by simply putting one large, screwless panel on the bottom of the unit. The panel simply snaps on and off and feels both sturdy and user-friendly while also making the dm1z as a whole more attractive by hiding serial numbers and the Windows key. As you can see, everything you'd want to upgrade is easily accessible.
Taken as a whole I'll admit to being fairly smitten by the dm1z's design. It's remarkably well streamlined and clearly designed to improve the user experience while avoiding looking too chintzy or cheap. This is definitely one of the best-looking netbooks I've ever seen and it feels very solid.
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balancedthinking - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
first of all, the mini 311 has only an N270the E-350 has more than twice the cpu power (cinebench etc.) and it was a hassle to work with an N270, an E-350 works almost like a normal laptop, office etc. quick and responsive. Multitasking, no problem.
Thats a huge difference and it does so with higher battery life and a lower price.
So what is so special about brazos? It beats hands down everything Intel/Nvidia have to offer right now in this mobile market space and that is a 1st for AMD.
Better performance, geat battery life and great price. Ther is no point in buying an atom anymore.
joe4324 - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
This even looks just like my HP Mini 311, Infact I bet its the same Chassis at least. I love seeing this ultra-portable market advance but HP really turned me sour and I will steer clear of them forever at any price point.If this machine suffers from the same flaws my Mini 311 did please be warned!
HP refused to service mine in anyway 72 days after warranty despite it basically falling apart. I paid $500 for my Mini 311. To keep yourself from falling into the same boat as me watch out for this:
1) Fan if the fan makes *any* weird noise at all even once, And or it runs continuously have it serviced or at least file a request. My fan started to die in less than a year but I limped along just past my warranty date then it completely died. I can find no replacement for less than an $65...
2) My speakers quit a couple weeks after the warranty, The audio jack works but not the speakers.
3) Check the temp sensor in the Bios, Mine had a bad habit of turning back on, or continuing to run when I thought it was in standby and if I was not diligent it would have overheated inside of backpacks cases etc.
I work in computer repair and I feel like I'm one of the best people to get stiffed with a dying computer as I have a lot of resources to fix it, but even then I feel like I am out almost $500 and HP showed zero signs of desire to help me out.
Unless they make it right I'm going to continue advocating a different brand. I see HP Dv6000's come into my work everyday with similar problems. I think HP is the most repaired/Dead laptops we see. Sony/IBM being the best. This is just a observation.
joe4324 - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
I forgot to mention, in 15 months my batter life went from 4.5 hours to 20 minutes also...tammlam - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
I bought one of these for my wife and everything was going well for the first 3 weeks until this past weekend. Turned it on and all we got was a bunch of distorted, horizontal lines. The screen periodically went dark as well. Once in a while, it clears up and the screen looks normal but this didn't last long. Now it is waiting to be picked up for repair and hopefully everything will work the way it should.Besides this glitch, it is a very nice notebook and I removed most of the preloaded programs. Got it down to 50 processes.
AlohaMike - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
Once again I am disappointed in HP. I keep WANTING to buy an HP and they keep forgetting to put a HOME and an END key on their netbooks. So I bought an Acer from Costco. Nothing fancy but I can type with it.Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
Fn+Left Arrow is Home, Fn+Right Arrow is End. They're there, they just aren't marked.silverblue - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
...a 2GHz Brazos. :) Unfortunately, I still think that whilst a faster CPU would help, the single-channel memory interface is choking it.swaaye - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
That's a horribly slow subnote, not a netbook.swaaye - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
That's a super slow subnotebook, not a netbook. You could've gotten something like this 2-3 years ago.mino - Tuesday, February 22, 2011 - link
You could have got something like this 4 yrs ago. For $2000+.Game. Set. Match.