HP DM1z

I gotta ask.. how bad is the reflective screen on this laptop?

I read that the asus 1215b has a really bad "flex" in it so I'm wondering about the keyboard as well.

The only option for a matte screen is on a laptop that last I checked had a 1 month waiting period.

I've avoided glossy screens for so long I may finally be forced into something new...

Is it really bad in terms of reflection?

 

I have the DM1-3020us. It has a glossy screen and it's very sharp. I liked it a lot. It's actually going on Ebay this weekend since I just got my dv7t-6100..lol

 

Do you happen to take your laptop out much? unfortunately I have no control over light situations in academic settings so I'm wondering how bad that may be.

 

The glare isn't any worse than any other glossy screen.

Keyboard is great. The whole laptop feels solidly built, at least to me.

 

Why don't you just purchase an anti glare screen protector?

 

Those aren't that great. The dm1 does fine outside in shady areas but not so great in direct sunlight like most glossy screens. For what it is, the dm1 has a decent screen with above average viewing angles and not too glossy as some machines.

However, if you really want to use it outdoors, you should look at the lenovo X120E with the brighter screen and matte screen. Same form factor and same AMD APU. They advertise that for outdoor use.

 

Eh, my issues don't stem from wanting to use it outdoors.

I have used glossy screens in the past and had over all poor experiences.

Unfortunately the lenovo x120e isn't an option except on newegg for about 100$ over my asking price.

While I've found a HP Dm1z for 400$ even with 3 gigs of ram + 320GB 7200 rpm HDD.

Checking some reviews, I've actually found for programming the higher rpm helps more than CPU speed in many cases due to lots of read/write issues.

Plus at a cost of 100$ I can upgrade to ssd later should I choose.

 

Anandtech found the Dm1z screen to be pretty poor

Not sure why anyone would buy this laptop when you can get a sandy bridge for like $50 more.

 

Well, If you go to the main dm1 thread which is pushing 300 pages now, you won't read very many complaints about the screen. viewing angles are decent and the screen will literally tilt back all the way flat if you want. Like I said, its ok and bright enough if your in a shaded area outdoors but under direct sunlight its weak. The higher nit screen of the X120e will work under direct sunlight so lenovo claims.

May I ask which sandy bridge model you are comparing the dm1 too? So far I am reading that the upcoming macbook air, Samsung's Series 9, and maybe a alienware will have a sandybridge 11.6" system for around a thousand dollars. The OP wants a small 11.6 form factor with 720P screen for around 400 dollars. If there is a sandy bridge 11.6" model out there for around 450 dollars I want to know about it.

Now if your talking about a larger model then its not a fair comparison. There is allot of other reasons to choose the dm1; great build quality, excellent speakers, no flex, great keyboard, easy to upgrade, strong graphics, runs cool, is very quiet with the new bios, and one if not the longest battery life for any E-350 AMD APU system and comes standard with BT and HDMI.

And it will still stream any you tube 1080P flash without a problem with the latest adobe drivers which only makes sense when outputting to 1080P HDTV which it also does fine. There have only been a few users on the dm1 forum who have said they have sent back their dm1's. Mainly because their expectations were too high and expected i3 or i5 CPU performance.

Anyway, back to the reflective question I have always thought the dm1 has a good mix of enough reflective coating to brighten up the image but not too reflective to limit environments it can be used. Its a big improvement over the last dm1 generation which suffered far worse for viewing angles/glare. In short, its a amazing screen at this price point. Note the Anandtech review is comparing the dm1 screen to HP dreamcolor, IPS, Apple air, dell XPS studio etc.. All these systems cost double or more what a dm1 costs. Lets compare apples with apples.

I've got a nicer 18.5" screen on my HP HDX which is 1080P. But I also paid over 1200 hundred dollars for this machine. Almost 3X more then my dm1. I am perfectly happy with my dm1 screen for what it is and for what I paid.

 

If you can find an 11.6" form factor laptop with a SB Processor for $400 let me know. I had the DM1-3020us and the screen was very sharp. Very good build quality and the keyboard was the best I've used on any laptop in some time. Actually much better than the one that came on my dv7t. Only reason I'm selling mine is because I don't need it anymore.

 

Last I heard Intel stated they don't want to heavily discount their processors anymore. I can't see any reason they would drop their SB price down to compete with the AMD zacate. Intel has the advantage in technology now to distance themselves from AMD to charge a premium. Intel threw AMD a bone with the zacate and cheap 11.6 form factor. Outside of that, I would not buy AMD. And with all the zacate E-350 systems, the dm1 is the only one IMO that hits the right price for the specs offered. Sony and Lenovo are priced to the point where the zacate is not a value purchase and you might as well go with a i3 system. The dm1 is unique and is a great machine for the money as long as your expectations are not too high.

 

At the risk of sounding snide.

I have very high expectations for my little device. I don't quite think its fair to say you can't expect a lot out of the device.

I personally think offering little weight, high durability, and an incredibly smooth experience. After doing some research, it should be able to run all the IDE's I'm looking to run, browse online, run office and more.

In fact outside of gaming/autocad It seems like it is pretty fair to expect it to do almost anything I want or could expect from a laptop in general.

To the user who mentioned it, show me an Sandy Bridge for 450$

that is

• 11.6" (Hell I'll settle for in the 11.6" up to 12.5" range).
  
• has 6 hours of battery lie
  
• weighs under 4 pounds
  
• running at UNDER 70C full load.
  

*EDIT*

Also, I really for the most point don't care about "screen quality".

I'm colorblind.. when it comes to colors, I really, really probably wouldn't notice the difference either way. I'm not totally colorblind and can see almost all colors however, I'm also blind enough that I don't even try to bother how many colors are displayed.

Viewing angles, even back lighting, and stuff like that are the only things I would notice..

If a screen is so below standard that I can notice it.. then odds are that product isn't going to sell, at all ever, and people will spit upon that company for eternity.

 

^You spelled "eternity" wrong.

 

Apparently autocorrect didn't catch that, and I'm too dyslexic/lazy to really care about it if it isn't caught by the software..

 

Don't get me wrong. I love my dm1 and agree it performs very well and smooth as you say. But there are those that will expect it to keep up with CPU intensive applications or think it should transcode a XVID to DVD as fast as a i7 machine etc.. The DM1 is snappy but its not as snappy as my 2 year old HDX with the P8700 core duo with DDR 2 ram. The DM1 is a supercharged netbook. One should not compare it to real ultraportables that are running faster i3 or i5 processors. Those systems will indeed feel snappier in everyday use. If you don't agree with that then your expectations may be too high for what this little guy is capable of.

In fact, I just configured a brand new G6t HP notebook for a friend that has the base p6200 intel at 2.16 ghz core 2 processor with 4 gigs of ram and 7200 320gb HD and that machine is snappier then the dm1 for light duties like office, internet etc.. I know it has weaker graphics so it will fail on those areas but it does very well with HD flash. That system cost about 470 dollars total with the 15 inch screen. Even my 4 year old dv6500 with core 2 1.8 ghz seems snappier with internet but its HD graphics is crap with the old nvidia 8400 gpu.

I think the reason my friends base P6200 feels snappier is that it still has a dual channel memory controller. This may be the Achilles heal of the dm1 since for some reason it only has a single channel memory controller. If there is one area I wish AMD had improved on this chip it would have been to include a dual memory controller on the E-350.

 

fair enough, I see where your coming from with that respect.

But, that also goes back to what we were discussing earlier.

When you discuss all the trade offs like price, size, power, and battery life.

The dm1 shines for what it is.

I may be wrong here but, to me video transcoding is a bit of an outlier I think. Its something a normal person would be more likely to do than, say Autocad but, I don't think of my mom, dad, 18 year old brother, or even my extremely attractive 19 year old girlfriend as saying "let me hop on the computer today and do some transcoding!"

The most intense thing I will be doing is visual studios which is probably not nearly as intense as it seems.

I guess the important thing to keep in mind here, is I have high expectations in regard to performance that I want in in regards to the programs I want.

I don't have high expectations for high performance if that makes any sense what so ever.

The best example I can give is if you go to toyota and buy a yaris, you have high expectations for fuel economy.

If you go to the porsche dealer ship.. you have high expectations for the 0-60 times.

 

As a side note:

AutoCAD may be choppy at some points of use. It is still functional, though a bit annoying in some instances. This only happens when you are handling many objects or when working in 3D.

 

Again, my point is the dm1 is noticeably slower in general internet surfing. At times it takes a bit longer to load the frames. Even on this site I definitely know my HDX opens up notebookreview site a bit faster. We are not talking a big difference here but I do notice.

I briefly had the prior generation dm1 with the neo k325 dual core processor and I swear it was more snappier. IMO some performance for the E-350 may have been compromised for the sake of battery life which was a major goal of AMD. I'm still happy with my dm1 but there is room for improvement in the processing department. Putting in a dual channel memory controller is what I want to see first along with a small increase in cpu cycles.

I hate to say it, but if I were to purchase today I may sway towards a DM3 13.3 inch with the intel i3. Definitely not as portable but probably snappier in everyday use which is important for me. But then again, that will cost 200 more. The DM1 is the only machine that delivers the goods at the right price with the right specs on the zacate platform. If you can pick one up for 400 dollars you can't go wrong.

What I would like to see is HP offer a option to put SB i3 into the dm1 and maybe charge 600 dollars. I believe the first generation dm1 did have intel inside.

 

I also should mention that text can be pretty small on the dm1. Especially on default settings. Ive had to change the dpi on mine as well as increase text size in the browsers and its still a bit hard for me to read. If you have trouble reading small print you might want to go with a 13 or 14 inch screen.

 

I find a single "CTRL +" on each website makes everything quite legible.

 

I got a FF extension to basically zoom everything to 115%. I think IE has a built in way to zoom all web pages. You need an extension with FF.