Inspiron m101z finally arrived!

So after several weeks of waiting my new m101z arrived. My configuration is listed in my sig. I opted for the peacock blue. First of all, I'd like to say that I got this as a travel laptop for school and general productivity so I'm not expecting it to break any world records for speed. Dell was very good about keeping useless software off this thing. The only icon I had on the desktop was the recycle bin. It did come with mcafee on it, skype, and a couple other things. Other than the mcafee, I will probably be using the other software.

I've got to tell you, this is one good looking laptop. It seems a little heavy for its size but it is extremely well built. The peacock blue comes with a jax pattern, see the image below. It's actually very subtle but the camera flash makes it look busy. I will tell you from the start, it is a fingerprint magnet. You can see some already.





Here it is sitting on top of my Dell XPS 16:




I was all ready to hate the touchpad but surprisingly it has a nice feel to it, my verdict is still out on the buttons but otherwise it has been very responsive.

Close up of the keyboard and the brushed metal finish on the palm rest:



The initial boot into windows was pretty fast, much faster than the single core atom netbooks I've fooled around with. I haven't done a whole lot with it yet, mostly internet surf. However, I did want to try out HD video playback. I watched an Iron Maiden video and it managed to play smooth all the way through.



The sound isn't too bad either for a laptop this size. There are two speakers located near the bottom front of the laptop. They are closest to the edge. You can see them in this image:



So far I am very happy with my purchase. I think I am going to enjoy this little laptop. Hopefully, it will last me a little while. I opted not to extend the warranty through Dell because the pricing was a bit high. I did want some extension beyon the initial year so I will probably buy through squaretrade.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement a little with you all. I hope those of you considering one of these find it somewhat useful.

Cheers!

 

thanks for posting these pics and your thoughts, seems like you're one of the first in the forum to get this. Have you had a chance to test battery life yet? And if not what does the battery meter report as the amount of battery life?

 

I have not gotten the time to really see how much real life I can get out of the battery under continuous use. On a full charge the meter indicates that I have just over 4 hours. However, just the other night, I did decide while doing some internet surfing and word processing with ms word 2010 to just leave it running. I disabled the sleep function and turning off the screen because there was some idling involved during this period. It was up and running for 6 hours straight. Note that I was not using it continuously the entire time, but it was on with those programs up. I finally shut it down when it had a sliver of juice left on the meter. I did not use the Dell extended battery feature.

On the Dell site, I believe a little later down the road they'll be release a higher capacity battery for this laptop. Under low stress use, it may be able to get 10+ when and if they do that. Overall, I am happy with the functionality and speed for what it has under the hood. The keyboard feels great and I am getting lots of compliments on it. It's pretty eye catching.

When I get an opportunity, I am going to try using a music player and surfing, as well as watching a movie.

Edit: I checked battery remaining at full charge, using the extended battery life profile and it indicates 5.5 hours but I take this with a grain of salt because it seems to fluctuate regularly. I 2 percent drop in charge can subtract an hour it seems which doesn't seem quite right. I never trust those things anyway.

 

Hello.

I am interested in buying this laptop. I currently own a dell inspiron 1545 with 2GB/250GB. The processor is Core 2 Duo T6400. But i have the following questions if someone can help me out!

1. How is the processor of the M101z compared to the above? I usually have iTunes running all the time. Besides, can it handle a web browser+itunes+photoshop+messenger?

2. How many cells are there in the battery?

3. I am looking for a smaller laptop than my current one i prefer a max 13" cos i have to travel alot. Are there any better options and how much speed would i compromise if i buy the M101z and sell off my old one?

 

Thinking about getting this laptop soon myself as well. Strange that there hasn't been much discussion about it here. The only negatives I can see is the poor battery life compared to others around the same size/price. Doesnt bother me too much though as at least 3 hours should suit me.

I don't think I would go for the more expensive configuration either. While the 7200rpm hard drive would be nice I really don't see the need for 4GB of RAM, seems like overkill considering the processor you have in there? I have a couple of 2.5" 7200rpm hard drives lying around at home so I can just stick one of them in anyway

 

I just boght the M101z and recieved it fairly quickly. i got it with the dual core and 4gb ram it is faster than my Lat 2100 that it is replacing and the screens picture is great probably one of the best screen i have seen in a dell consumer notebook. the system is well built just wish it was easier to swapp out the HDD but no biggie will be moving the 256GB ssd from my 2100 to the m101z. the battery with the screen at mid brightness to last around 4.5 hours for me. my specs are bellow.

I am also glad to see dell moving to having AMD side by side with intel systems on their webpage. and hope to see better (studio) based AMD systems with a High end video card.

 

Well i just noticed that my new C300 is using sata 3 (600 MBPS) Which tells me that Intel is falling way behind because their current chipsets dont have that and heck it maxes out on the windows 7 index. and this computer boots now in less than 40 seconds using auto login.

in crystal disk mark i get
5/1000/C: (Crucial C300)

SEQ Read 308 write 215
512 K Read 270 Write 222
4k Read 14 Write 21
4k QD32 Read 168 Write 137

 

Hmm...it's kind of a shame this ultraportable isn't getting much fanfare.

Dell finally shipped mine out, and I have to go pick it up at the FedEX facility. I'll do a picture guide on replacing the hard drive since I need to throw in the SSD and try to come up with a fairly comprehensive review. I had a HP Dv2 that was quite nice, but ran so hot that it shuts itself off. Let's see how this new generation Neo processor does.

 

Sorry I haven't been able to follow-up sooner but school and work are slamming me hard right now.

I don't have much experience with the processor you've mentioned but I've got to tell you this little thing is pretty speedy. Maybe someone else will be able to compare the two for you. Everyone who has been on it is surprised because they're accustomed to netbooks with atom processors and a max of 2 gb ram. I must say that it has been performing very well. I run office 2010 on it, no problem. I even run photoshop and dreamweaver, although I have not done any really heavy editing in photosop. It handles is all very well so far.

It loads windows and shuts down really quickly thanks to Dell not overloading it with bloatware.

It comes standard with a 6 cell. Dell is supposed to be releaseing a 9 cell but I am not sure when that will happen. I must say that I would expect the battery life to be better for a laptop this size but it isn't exactly horrible.

Overall, I am very happy with my purchase.

 

Good news TRF, I look forward to a comprehensive review. I wish I had the time to do one as well but I barely have time to log in and read the boards these days.

I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine. I am glad more people are finally getting them and will post their impressions.

 

Well I tried to set it up during work and I am at a nasty road block. It seems the M101z doesn't want to play nice with my Intel SSD. In the BIOS screen, the Fixed Disk is showing up as none. When I try to run Windows 7 installation, the installer sees the drive and can format and delete the partition, but refuses to install 7 on it, claiming that it is a removable drive. I know the SSD is fine, because I can mount it to another computer and read/write to it fine. I really hope I can figure this out, because this is definitely one of the nicest 11" ultraportables out there and I don't want to send it back just because it doesn't like the Intel X25-M.

 

Well this is turning into a nightmare.

I'm pretty disappointed in Dell right now, and am very tempted to return the M101z. However, I put the factory drive back in and played with it for a while, and this by far is the best 11.6" notebook I've come across so far for my needs. So I guess I'll just use the factory drive for now and hope someone at Dell would be kind enough to get Intel SSDs working on this notebook. Thankfully I got the 7200 RPM drive.

 

That is a shame you can't get your drive to work. I guess for anyone looking to upgrade to a SSD should steer clear of intel for now.

I totally agree with you about this being one of the best ultra portables at this size around. I did a lot of research before purchasing this one and I am very happy with the performance and quality so far. HP has a similar laptop, the dm1z but I wasn't impressed with the looks or feel of that one. +1 though for HP on the configuration options but as it stands, the dell config is fine for my needs.

On another note, I went to the site a couple of days ago and it looks like they went up just slightly on the price for the top build on this one as compared to when I got mine. I configured it the same and before tax it was as much as I paid with tax.

 

Visual Guide on Accessing the M101z's 2.5" Bay

1) Flip notebook over, and remove the three screws on the bottom of the notebook as shown below, marked by X:



2) Position the notebook back to its base, and flip up the screen. You may notice the upper section of the keyboard's base (Highlighted in red as shown below) is loose. If not, use your fingernails to pry it upwards along the indicated edge. Only pull the indicated edge upwards. Once the top edge has come off, slide the keyboard upwards towards the screen so the tabs on the bottom of the keyboard base is clear from the notebook.



Do not lift up the keyboard past 2-3 inches of its initial position! It is still attached to the notebook by the ribbon cable, and carelessly lifting off quickly can cause that ribbon cable to rip or damage the connector.

3) With that keyboard shifted out of the way, the 2.5" bay is now accessible. To remove the hard drive, take off the screws denoted by the X as shown in the picture below, and afterwards push the entire drive bracket to the right, to disconnect it. The drive can now be removed from the notebook.

 

Review

Preface
Dell’s second shot at the 11.6” notebook market, the M101z, would be the first AMD-based ultraportable that Dell has unleashed on the market. Armed with AMD’s latest 45 nm Nile platform, will this newcomer be able to make its mark on the market? I have had a HP Dv2 with the first generation Athlon Neo MV-40 processor. While it performed well, its biggest weakness was that it ran so hot, the fan was on continuously. In fact, it got so hot that the notebook would shut itself off due to exceeded thermal threshold. I admit that experience made me quite skeptical of the new Nile platform.

My initial experience with the M101z was already met with much grievance; I couldn’t get my Intel X-25M SSD to work. Dell’s phone support offered virtually no help, and I nearly gave up on the M101z and was ready to ship it back. After putting the factory hard drive back in, I felt like I wasn’t giving it a fair chance and I didn’t want to base its experience on shoddy phone tech support. So I dragged it back out of the box, and this is where we start…

Configuration
Dell currently sells two configuration of the M101z; The first configuration, priced at $449, comes with the single core Athlon II Neo K125 running at 1.7 GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 250GB 5400 RPM HDD. For an extra $100, the processor gets bumped to a dual core K325 running at 1.3 GHz, along with 4 GB RAM and a 320GB 7200 RPM HDD. Other than that, everything else is the same, including the Mobility Radeon HD 4225 IGP and the Wireless 802.11b/g/n/Bluetooth combo card. The M101z used in this review is the $549 dual core model.

Build Quality & Feel = 4/5
The M101z’s build quality is overall good. Panel gaps are kept to a minimum, and although some parts of the notebook such as the palm rest appear to be aluminum, the only part of the M101z that is actually metal is the base of the keyboard assembly. Regardless, the entire notebook felt quite solid; no flexes are present unless one applies a lot of pressure on the panel above the keyboard.

The LCD lid cover comes in a glossy finish, and just like the palm rest, is a fingerprint magnet. Other than the glossy finish on some panels, no fault can be found in the notebook’s structure rigidity and material quality.



Keyboard & Touchpad = 4/5
The M101z utilizes a chiclet keyboard and learning from its sibling, the Inspiron 11z, has a touchpad with physical buttons. The keyboard is easily one of the M101z’s strongest attributes; the layout is great, keys are well-spaced, giving distinctions between an alphabet key and specialty keys such as the Tab key. Key travels are also excellent, giving appropriate feedback when pressed with moderate resistance and keeping typing noise to a minimum.

The touchpad’s surface looks the same as the palm rest, but has more resistance to it. The physical buttons lack resistance and feels somewhat mushy; for those who has used the Thinkpad X100e (Or any Lenovo for that matter) touchpad before, it feels just like that. Other than the mushy buttons, the touchpad itself operates fine in general, offering accurate input and multi-touch functions.



Display & Sound = 3.5/5
The M101z has an 11.6” Glossy LCD screen with resolution of 1366 x 768. It is more or less the same in terms of brightness, contrast and saturation found in other 11.6” Dell and HP notebooks, especially the Alienware M11x in terms of above average color saturation. Viewing angles are average; horizontal angle is roughly sixty degrees from center before colors began distorting, and vertical angle seems to not fare much better before the colors distort at roughly twenty degrees from center. This is mostly likely due to the screen’s glossy cover, which kicks back a fair amount of reflection and makes outdoor viewing in sunlight nearly impossible. Contrast level is average, with good white level but somewhat lackluster black level.

The M101z has two speakers firing diagonally downwards below the palm rest. The speakers are typical notebook speakers, with non-existent bass and tinny in sound. It does, however, get loud and does not suffer from distortion at high volume.



Ports = 3.5/5
The Inspiron M101z offers a decent number of ports, coming with three USB 2.0 ports, along with one HDMI, one VGA, a memory card reader, an Ethernet and a headphone and line-in port. One unique aspect that separates the M101z from other 11.6” notebook is the inclusion of both VGA and HDMI video ports, which in most other 11.6” notebooks either comes with one or the other. Furthermore, the VGA port is located in the rear of the notebook. An ExpressCard or PC card slot would have been a nice addition.







Software & Performance = 3.5/5
Fortunately, bloatware on the M101z is virtually non-existent. Other than the Dock and McAfee SecurityCenter trial, the installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit operating system is left alone. However, no recovery disc is included, which seems to be the current trend regardless of manufacturer, but interestingly enough, there is no software installed that would allow owners to make recovery discs. Upon further examination, the 320GB HDD is partitioned into two sections, one that serves as the main partition in which the OS and any installed programs reside, and there is also a second, hidden partition labeled Recovery. As there is no software on the M101z to create recovery discs, the only way to recover the notebook or restore it to factory settings seems to be contacting Dell and requesting recovery discs.

The M101z’s performance in everyday usage is good for an 11.6” notebook. The Athlon II Neo K325 dual core processor keeps the experience smooth and responsive. Even under load, the notebook performs admirably. With Windows Update installing update packages in the background and watching a Toy Story 3 Trailer in 1080p, the M101z remained responsive and lag-free with no performance degradation in the video or other processes.

Temperature & Noise = 4/5
This perhaps is what hurt the original AMD Neo processors the most. The original Neo MV-40 processor was based off the 65 nanometer manufacturing process, and was a real scorcher, literally. It beat the Intel Atom handily in performance, but unfortunately, was rated nearly twice as much in TDP and as a result, lost badly to the Atom when it comes to heat and battery life.
The Athlon II Neo processors are based on the 45 nanometer manufacturing process, and the end result is a much more refined processor worthy of competing with Intel’s CULV offerings. Although still not as fast as Intel’s last generation CULV Core 2 branded processors and being left behind by their new Core i-series CULV processors, the Athlon II Neo still holds its ground and offers great day-to-day performance while keeping heat and power consumption low.

As for the M101z, this translates to a decent, but not perfect user experience. The system fan does run continuously, albeit at low speed where it could only be heard in a dead quiet room, but inaudible in classroom or at a Starbucks. The fan usually stays quiet unless the processor and IGP are heavily stressed, and even then, the fan noise is moderate at best. The only time the fan gets uncomfortably loud is when the computer is turned on, in which the system spins up the fan for a brief second. So far, this level of fan speed was not able to be achieved under normal usage, even when playing HD videos.

Temperature is kept in check with the M101z. The notebook continuously blows warm air out of the case through a vent located on the left side of the machine, which should not bother most people unless they’re using a mouse with their left hand. The palm rest and keyboard never gets hot enough to be uncomfortable when touched, even when the notebook is under load. Either the M101z has an excellent heatsink, or the AMD’s new Nile platform is much better on heat.

Battery Life = 3.5/5
Both configurations of the Inspiron M101z comes with a 6 cell Lithium-Ion battery that sits flush with the rear of the machine. With the display brightness at 70% and the wireless and Bluetooth interfaces active, the M101z lasted about four hours and fourty-three minutes before turning off. During this time, the notebook was installing NetBeans IDE and Eclipse Classic (Approximately 1.1 GB of data for ten minutes), and was used continuously to browse internet forums. Since it has a 7200 RPM HDD, the battery life could have possibly be able to get very close or even above the five hour mark if the notebook was not installing those programs. An optional 9 cell battery, according to Dell, will be available shortly that should bring the battery life of the M101z up to seven to eight hours.

Overall Rating = 3.75/5
While not a revolutionary product, Dell now offers an excellent AMD-based ultraportable notebook for the masses. With Lenovo’s X100e and HP’s dm1z as its main competitor, the Inspiron M101z gives consumers another solid choice for an 11.6” notebook that is not Intel based. For those that still has bitter aftertaste from the first generation Athlon Neo processors, it would be unwise to assume that these new AMD Neo processors would be the same.
On my rating scale, a 3.75 would be equivalent to a ‘Very Good’, and 4 would have been ‘Excellent’. The M101z did not achieve an ‘Excellent’ rating for me for two reasons: Flaky BIOS when it comes to HDD detection and battery life. Perhaps if Dell releases a BIOS update that fixes compatibility issues with certain SSDs, I would definitely bump up the rating.

As far as the notebook goes, the only thing I really see dragging it down is the battery life and value in terms of price. While four and a half hours of runtime is not bad, Intel’s Core i CULV processors offer superior performance to the Athlon II Neo along with more runtime off the plug, which brings us to its next fault: value. At the time of this review, the base M101z costs $449 and the ‘Top’ configuration comes in at $549. While it costs about the same as the X100e and dm1z, HP offers a 7200 RPM HDD in its $449 dm1z configuration and the fastest available Neo processor, the 1.5 GHz dual core K625, in its $599 configuration. While the $549 m101z seems spot-on compared to its competition, the base $449 configuration should be priced at $429 or $399.

 

i would be willing to bet that Intel had a chipset check in the ssd and if it dosnt detect an intel chipset then it dosnt work right wouldnot be the first time for intel for instance their wifi cards tend to have the same issue. i would honestly get a crucial c300 as it has a faster than sata II connection on this system thanks to amd being ahead of intel technology wise with sata and graphics. bellow is what my ssd gets after 2 weeks of constant use. its about 1-2 mb slower on the seq read but all the others are the same or faster.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 311.612 MB/s
Sequential Write : 220.846 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 269.982 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 224.794 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 14.365 MB/s [ 3507.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 20.779 MB/s [ 5073.0 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 167.967 MB/s [ 41007.5 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 121.756 MB/s [ 29725.6 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 14.7% (35.1/238.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/09/27 5:38:19
OS : Windows 7 SP1, v.178 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

 

I have verified that this is not an issue with the SSD. I installed it in a custom desktop with the AMD 780G chipset, which worked fine and allowed me to install 7 on it. Next test was done with an older Lenovo Thinkpad X400e, which has an AMD chipset as well, and it accepted the drive with no issues. I really think at this point, it's Dell's lackluster BIOS that's giving me problems. I've had this Intel drive for well over four months now, so when it comes to push and shove, the notebook gets the proverbial boot first.

 

Great job on the review TRF. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

 

Well.............I put a Intel X25 40g SSD into M101Z, the Bios can recognize this drive. However the Intel X25 80g can’t be recognized………I can’t tell where the problem is ….
Does anyone have Intel X25 160g can test this problem?


new update
2010.10.16
I found that the intel X25-M 80g sometimes can't be detected.
the solution is.......just reset several times.....

 

@chris_compson

How did you migrate Windows 7 to the C300? What migration software did you use? And did you change some settings in Windows 7 on the new SSD like disabling standby mode, defragment and prefetch?

 

Sorry for the delay i didnt use any migration i used the windowz 7 pro 64 dvd that came on my studio XPS. I dont like migrating data especially since i didnt even use it on the HDD but to make sure it worked before replacing the HDD and its using the defaults except it dosnt do standby when closing lid when plugged in, and made sure the hybrid sleep was off and extended the sleep settings to a slightly longer time on batt and no sleep on ac.

Also as a follow up here is what i got when i just reran with a 4gb test file
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 308.632 MB/s
Sequential Write : 217.761 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 282.691 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 222.546 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 16.991 MB/s [ 4148.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 37.483 MB/s [ 9151.2 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 166.945 MB/s [ 40758.0 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 123.808 MB/s [ 30226.5 IOPS]

Test : 4000 MB [C: 33.0% (78.6/238.4 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2010/10/22 23:18:26
OS : Windows 7 SP1, v.178 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

and here it is with 5x1gb chunks

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 306.781 MB/s
Sequential Write : 219.896 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 277.088 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 225.256 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 14.937 MB/s [ 3646.6 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 39.154 MB/s [ 9559.0 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 168.904 MB/s [ 41236.4 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 125.046 MB/s [ 30528.8 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 33.2% (79.0/238.4 GB)] (x5)
Date : 2010/10/22 23:27:10
OS : Windows 7 SP1, v.178 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)

 

I decided to give the m101z a try. Just ordered it, hasn't arrived yet... I always liked the portability of the netbook, but I didn't have good experiences with netbooks in general... I originally purchased the mini 10 when it first came out and video seemed to be choppy on it, so I sent it back... I got the dual core amd, with 4gb of ram. If it meets my expectations and i'm happy with it, (using it for school, email, surfing the web, watching movies, streaming netflix...) i'll be upgrading it to 8gb of ram (will that actually make a big difference in performance?) I got the tomato red, my studio 1555 is red my xps m1530 was red too, lol, i'm stuck on red... anyway, I don't see much discussion here about the m101z model...

 

I was looking pretty hard at the m101z but a couple things bothered me. First, Dell was charging about the same as HP's dm1z. But HP offers a additional gig of ram and 7200 rpm HD for about the same amount that dell charges for a system with 2 gigs and only the 5400 rpm drive. HP allows you more building options as well. One advantage the dell has it offers BT standard.

There is also a coupon for the dm1z $25.00 Coupon LOGICBUY25. But what really pointed me at the HP was the fact that the dell m101z has NO access to the HD. So if you have a HD failure, your screwed. If you want to upgrade the HD, your screwed. You only have access to the memory and battery on the dell and that, is nothing less then pathetic. One think I also liked on the dell is they offered a 9 cell battery, however, they don't have it now and you can't configure it with order. So yeah, it has existed in the past, but not now and there is no telling what it will cost once it appears again. The dell also does not even offer the highest neo option either the k625. Only the k125 single core and the k325 dual core. Like I said, dell's configurations are extremely limited in the building process.

To me, the HP is the way to go. Offering that extra gig and faster HD for the same money and also engineering HD access made my decision rather easy when choosing between the two.

Now having said all that, my first dm1z came in the mail yesterday and the battery door was not on. And the guts underneath it bowed it up.. would not sit flush. So that was frustrating and the first major visual defect I have personally seen on a new HP. So i have to wait for a replacement now. But I still think with that bad experience, I am better off with the HP for those major upgrades in ram and HD. But the HD access just made my decision easy and was the deal breaker. I think the HP also has a much better finish and is not the fingerprint magnet like the dell is.

But in all fairness, I once returned a dell 1420 that came with cracked housings on the hinges which also had the worst looking screen I have ever seen on any machine. So when it comes to buying home notebooks that are assembled in China, its only luck IMO that you get "a good one". Unfortunately, the replacement on the 1420 had a screen that was even worse, looked like vaseline was smeared on the screen with the worse vertical/horizontal viewing angles I have ever seen. Ever since that, I've stuck with HP and have been "lucky" with the cheap China built notebooks, until yesterday with that screwed up dm1z and the faulty battery/memory door.

 

Documentation

Take the keyboard off and the hard drive is right there. You're not "screwed" if you have a HD failure. Upgrading the HD in my 14R was worlds more complicated.

 

Hey guys thinking about buying 2 of these for my daughters. Their Acer one's with an intel Atom 1.6 Ghz cpu is not holding up. Lately we have been playing lots of wizard 101 and they are really getting into it. I feel guilty when I can tell they are getting 10 fps in crowded areas. I have change all the settings to low but its not helping much. Would any of you all owners, be kind enough to do a quick test. Go to www.wizard101.com and download the client. Make a free account and run around the "commons area " One of the most crowded area and see how it handle and if it can handle high detal. Thanks if anyone can do the kind gesture. Thinking about getting the Dual core version but I would not mind it being tested on the single core version also. Thanks if anyone spents time on this test.

 

Well I got the HP version of this system, the dm1z with the 325 dual core. I went to that web site and created a account. Unfortunately, it wanted me to install an exe file. Knowing this game would never interest me, I was not willing to risk messing up my registry or cluttering it up with the installation. I will add though, that the HP dm1 z is a very fast system. I have 3 gigs of ram, with the 7200 rpm hd and 325 amd dual core. I've run some 1080P video without a hitch as well as you tube 1080 without any slow down. This machine runs very quick to say the least. You can't compare it to the atom based systems. It simply blows them clean out of the water. AMD is kicking Intel in the on this nile plateform.

Order this online and you risk nothing. If it does not play your game, you have 21 to 30 days to return for a full refund. That's why its always better to purchase CTO systems online. But I highly doubt at all this machine will have any problem at all with this game. It has powerful ati graphics that clean house on the intel integrated graphics.

 

I'm resurrecting this old thread.

I bought accidentally 1.8'' Crucial c300 for my Inspiron m101z (or 1120 as it's called in Europe). Anyway, with the help of adapter I was able to connect it but Inspiron did not recognize it, neither in AHCI nor ATA mode. (Tried also an Intel x25-m, but no success)

Drive and adapter seem to be working, because I was able to connect, read and write in my desktop computer.

In this thread people said that they were able to use Crucial c300 with m101z. Can it be that 1.8'' and 2.5'' versions are so different that one is supported and other is not?

Has anybody some more success stories with replacing m101z's hard drive with some SSD?

greetings,
Aivar