*HP dm3 (1XXX series) Owners Lounge*

Just bought mine from Office Depot. On the display model they had, the right plastic trim that runs along the side of the laptop looked like it was coming off, I hope the one I bought isn't like that. I'm in progress of opening it.

 

http://www.skinstyler.com/pc does anyone have any feedback on these? I am thinking about getting one for the trackpad to improve the texture

 

Well, if the SU7300 was able to get 9+ hours with continuas web surfing, then I have to believe the SU7300 + nVidia G105 should easily get 6+ hours. That makes me wonder if under load it will last 2.5 hours or so... If anything, this looks the most promising of the configurations. The SU7300 will push the G105 properly and looks to have better battery life than a Neo 1.6Ghz + 4330.

 

Don't forget that the Neo 1.6Ghz + 4330 has switchable graphics to the HD 3200. Plus, no one currently has the 4330, so it's impossible to tell how much battery life it gets.

 

I'm curious to see how that turns out.

 

Since a lot of you took issue with my first, casual observation, I thought I would post a more real-life battery life estimate. I used this lappy tonight, it belongs to a friend, and I now estimate that when doing real-life tasks on a continuous basis you get about 4 hours of battery life at full brightness with Wi-Fi on.

I have not yet read through all the latest posts, but perhaps this comes closer to other user observations.

 

It does? (10 char)

 

I will add a link to this review to the first post, thanks for finding it.

 

Can a couple of you post your Windows Experience scores? I know someone did so before, but I'd like to see if everybody's scores are the same. I know I've seen multiple HP laptops with the exact same specs but different Windows Experience scores. Thanks.

 

This one got 4.2/5.9/3.5/4.8/5.9. It got a base score of 3.5.

 

I have the DM3-1030US
(Office Depot/Staples Model)

Here are my Windows Experience Scores
Processor 4.2
Memory 5.8
Graphics 3.5
Gaming Graphics 4.9
Primary Hard Disc 5.9

Base Score 3.5

Just as a comparison - Here are the WE Scores for the new Toshiba T135
Running SU4100 with 4500MHD Graphics, 3GB Ram and 320GB HD - supposedly a direct competitor to the DM3 (same price at Best Buy also)

Processor 3.9
Memory 4.7
Graphics 3.5
Gaming Graphics 3.3
Primary Hard Disc 5.3

Base Score 3.3

 

Perfect, now I hope we get a few more people. I'll post my Intel scores whenever it finally comes in.

I just noticed the second set of scores above me and they are a tad different. I never understood that. Even with my own HP laptops when I got replacements, sometimes the new replacement had lesser scores, even with the same hardware and software updates.

 

Zero complaints about heat from 7200rpm, don't think it's an issue with this lappy. Fan noise is virtually inaudible too.

 

I just had the DM3 play though a couple of movies - the underside of the palm rest got a little warm but nowhere near as bad as other laptops that I have used like the MacBook Pro etc . .

 

DM3-1030US
(Office Depot Model)

Windows Experience Scores:
Processor 4.2
Memory 5.7
Graphics 3.5
Gaming Graphics 4.8
Primary Hard Disc 5.8

Base Score 3.5

Interesting that mine are a tad lower than Corteen's... WIll run this on my custom build when it arrives as well.

I also ran the Windows Experience Index on the Toshiba at Best Buy (T135-S1309) and Office Depot (T135-S1310) and saw similar scores. The Toshiba T135s have deceptive speed, but it is hidden underneath a horrible touchpad lag issue (something in the drivers). For those who have seen them on the retail shelf, it appears that they are slower than their Celeron cousins (T115s) but it is in fact lag on the pointing device...

 

The only constant I have seen so far with those that have posted is the processor and graphics. The Memory, Gaming Graphics, and even the Primary Hard Disc are all different.

That's exactly why I asked for multiple WEIs. Just wanted to see the range of the scores.

 

Well I just pulled the trigger on the Intel 2.3ghz, Geforce 105M combination. Interestingly the build date is estimated to be the 3rd, whereas yesterday while I was pondering they were saying the 4th. So the build date actually moved up...

Anyhow, I'll be sure to post numbers ASAP when I get it in.

 

Check the first post for definitive information, thanks.

 

I have the intel from sams, 1366x 768

 

Thanks for the link....really cool/usefull!

-have to admit I hated the drag on the touch pad-

 

No forgetting is going on. I can base the best case scenario battery life for the Neo + 4330 by using the results from the base unit. So, if all of these guys are getting around 4 hours of real world use, then the Neo + 4330 can only match that at best, and at worst will sink far below that level.

 

I've been using it all day so far. I like it a lot. It does get warm, but I recommend you keep it on a hard surface and not your leg. The build quality is excellent, my only concern is the right silver plastic trim on the bottom part of the laptop. It doesn't fit corrrectly and there's very tiny gap between that and the aluminum casing. I noticed it also on the display copy.

It took a while to update Windows 7 and Office but it looks good to go.

 

A friend of mine says that in manufacturing when a processor is listing 1.6ghz it could test - in fact- a little more or less than 1.6ghz... He also says that those prduct that are too far out from the standard deviation are normally considered deffective or re-assigned to display lower clock speed....??? is that true?..???

 

For my current laptop, the processor is the same score, but the Gaming Graphics and the Primary HD scores are less than the original I got. So I'm sure the HD and the Graphics Card probably have a range from low to high that if it fits in that range or does not deviate too far then it's still acceptable. It sucks for people like me since this means that the original laptop I got is probably a tad better than this one. Based on the WEI that is. I doubt it matters that much, but obviously knowing the laptop before had better scores doesn't sit too well with me.

 

So I was looking at the pictures of the dm3z over at NewEgg. On the touchpad, there's a design indicating that you can swip up and down with two fingers to scroll. Those of you who actually have the dm3z, can you actually do this? Is there multitouch support that works? How well does it work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI... Memory 320GB HDD ATI Radeon HD 3200 NoteBook

 

Yes it does work, although a bigger trackpad would have made it much more useful. I have used it for two-finger swipes to scroll up and down, and spread and pinch to zoom out and in while viewing Web pages in IE.

 

Went to bestbuy this aftnoon. played with it a good 45mn. DM3Z /HD3200-

U right,the plastic trim is not correctly fitting, less than 1 mm-ok with me as long as it doesn't come off- the notebook seems really solid, light and slim enough. Although the black trim above & below the screen is a bit large (they could have saved more weight/material while making the laptop a bit smaller)

I played random movies on hulu while running a few transformer trailers from yahoo movies. I tried to run 3 movies at the same time on diff screens and it seemed to be flowing, although some blur was visible at full screen on yahoo movies-but that wasn't HD trailers.
it was already slightly warm (bottom left, under the laptop) but not hot-s/one (may be in this forum )was using it right before me- and it seemed to remain at the same temperature.

Also Windows 7 really seem efficient and stable from the get-go.

Tempted to get the basic DM3Z+average core Quad desktop for games
or maxed out version of DM3t/SP9300 with G105M + a nice 22" screen- but seriously afraid of heat issues and a battery life below 4hrs would be a deal breaker.

Is the 25watt TDP on SP9300 a constant or is it just a max value (based on full processor utilization)? Meaning that for basic word processing and internet browsing the computer will not get hot?
-can't wait for those reviews-....

 

Did you get Windows 7 installation disks in the box or does it give you the option to create disks?

Someones gonna have to let me know how to get rid of the bloatware when mine arrives.

Letting it all hang out and going for the SP9300 with G105M.
Dont see many going for this option. Starting to feel a bit lonely, and a little concerned i made the wrong choice...

Im not too concerned about battery life, but too much heat wont blow my hair back.

 

How responsive/enjoyable/usable is the two-finger scroll to use? Has it easily become your preferred method of scrolling up and down?

 

Does dm3 come with IR receiver and remote?

 

25 Watts would be at max load, I believe. If you are just doing the basics and using one of the preset power profiles, your CPU/GPU will clock down to conserve energy, which will also reduce heat.

 

I plugged in the dm3 to my HD TV and the video outputs correctly (and man does it look NICE on the big screen), however I can't get sound out. I thought HDMI would handle audio output also, unless I'm missing something.

 

It does handle sound, although the format of your audio and also your settings would be necessary to help troubleshoot... It worked great running through my Sony 46", although I did have to turn off all "enhancements" on the TV to get a nice, clear, smooth picture.

 

I'll try posting what I did tomorrow, I turned off the HP and I'm back on my old Dell. All I remember was playing an AVI file, and under the volume control, I had controls for the laptop, and I'm assuming the one with the TV icon was for the TV. Maybe I missed the fact that the TV volume was muted (according to the Sound control pane).

 

I posted in the other thread but this is amazing.

Apparently @ 1.6Ghz the L335 AMD cpu runs 0.925v
@ 800mhz it runs 0.800v

Also I just ran AMD hyper-v compatibility check utility. This cpu supports AMD-V (Virtualization Tech)

So the GPU looks like standard RS780 with 128mb sideport mem (DDR2 i think) and 256mb shared with system memory. I cannot find the speed it is running at. The AMD overdrive and GPUz dont give correct readings.

Cpu core temps at idle 35C/25C
load 53C/47C

I'm still trying to get DXVA to work.. It doesnt work on some videos.

 

@Snipester Anyword on the multitouch touchpad? Someone mentioned that it works, but didn't really say how well it works. Can you clarify that a bit? I'd really like to know if it has become your primary way of scrolling up and down. Does it work really well or just kinda okay... know what I mean?

 

I'd have to say the shiny surface looks nice but it is mediocre for use in general. It is really finicky depending on how sweaty your finger is. Sometimes it feels like gliding, other times its like very sticky.

I like using the single vertical scroll (Because that is what i am used to) and can use it very easily. I can also lower the amount of pressure I put down on the pad to more easily glide over it.

The multi touch could be useful i suppose. The pad is a bit small. I could see a larger pad and multi touch being really awesome. Something with a better texture perhaps. When you put 2 fingers on a sometimes sticky, sometimes smooth surface it gets to be a bit of a drag requiring different amounts of finger strength to move along.

Other than the texture issue, it feels like it detects your finger perfectly. I have not had any no-response/lag/mis-interpret input. It works as advertised.

Would you buy this machine just for this feature? Probably not.
Is it extra cool because it has this feature? Yes.

 

Thanks for the detailed reply. I appreciate it!

 

I installed it and it seems I can play back H264 mkvs fine. However VC1 seems to have an issue. One file is not detected for DXVA decode (defaults to cpu) and the other I see a green screen and corruption (detects VC1). I went through the forums but I didnt see anything particular about this. All I did was install MPC-HC. Did you do anything else?

I just tried to playback VC1 files on my desktop with a 4800 and it seems using the cyberlink H264/VC1 decoder with DXVA checked, i still get around 40% cpu usage on a dual core E8400. I must have a bad config. I tried the other file which was green on the dm3 and it played using WMVideo decoder in software.

 

Possibly once the gloss wears off a little with use, it'll get a little easier to use and become a smooth surface?

 

HD3200 review -Interesting.....from Notebookcheck.com-seems that HD3200 is more than enough for blu Ray or any HD Video. Plus seems the card can be tricked out to add dedicated memory (if i understood)...

"The AMD ATI Radeon (Mobility) HD 3200 is an onboard (shared Memory) graphics chip (on the RS780M chipset). It is based on the HD 2400 graphics core and features the UVD video engine to decode HD videos (Avivo HD).

The UVD video engine is able to decode HD videos (MPEG-2, H.264, and VC-1) in all stages and allows the fluent playback of HD videos (e.g. Blu-ray) with a relative low CPU utilization (called Avivo HD). The HD 3200 was the first onboard graphics card that allows the fluent playback of Blu-ray videos. The UVD on the HD 3200 supports the decoding of one video stream only. A second stream (e.g. on Blue Rays with PIP feature) has to be done by the CPU.

The graphics core of the HD 3200 stems from the Mobility Radeon HD 2400 and is therefore DirectX 10 capable. Because of the missing graphics memory, the performance of the card is a bit lower than of the HD 2400. Theroretically, dedicated memory chips can be directly added to the chip, making it a dedicated graphics card. Because of pricing it is unclear if any manufacturer will add memory to the chip."



link:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-HD-3200.9591.0.html

 

There is memory directly hooked to the chip but it is not high bandwidth. I think it is 64-bit width at most which makes it like a really cheap dedicated gfx. Adding this type of memory is negligible. Mostly it has to do with keeping the HT link in a sleep / throttled state to save battery. (eg. to draw the screen you dont need to keep going to the memory through the cpu).

 

S/ne posted this link earlier on this thread...it should solve ur pb
http://www.skinstyler.com/pc
(Make sure to find/give them credit)

 

I haven't found the exact cause but every once in a while the multitouch gestures act with the incorrect input. And another thing that just happened was my trackpad stopped responding. I tried turning it off and back on but it didn't work, so I went ahead and restarted for it to come back.

This usually happened after coming from Sleep. I'll be checking the driver some time. I've also had a few drops in wireless signal but it may be just the range from my router or the laptop's own range.

 

True, Snipester- I read something along those lines earlier. But even as is the HD3200 remains the best integrated(balanced power+battery saving) option if good graphic processing power is required. the notebookcheck site even sustains that it will play older games... I would trade-off a bit of Intel's 10hrs of battery for some solid graphic perf.- (5 to 6hrs of balanced performance would be enough for me)

"Still older games like Doom 3 or Quake 4 should be barly playable. Compared to older onboad graphic chips (e.g., GMA X3100), the HD 3200 is much faster. Even the Centrino 2 graphics core (GMA 4500M HD) is noticeable slower than the HD 3200. "

 

notebookcheck also mentionned a driver issue with HD3200 (I assume that is what you have).

"Using Windows XP, the HD 3200 seems to have problems with current and older drivers, as there is no 2D accelleration. This leads to very slow interactions with windows and scrolling (especially with Firefox as reported in various discussion boards). More information on the topic can be found at Planet 3D Now (de) or the AMD forum. "

 

Actually this aspect I feel is fine in Win7. I think what I am looking at is VC1 specific issues where a video must be formed in a specific way otherwise UVD will not play it back. Every single H264 codec video I've played seemed to work. I do not have any MPEG2 high def stuff to try. Since Flash HD uses H264 exclusively and flash eventually will get acceleration, I hope it works on the HD3200 not just the ion.

I feel that these hardware decoders have enough limitations that what you really need (if you are a media buff) is to have a good enough CPU + GPU combo.

http://nunnally.ahmygoddess.net/watching-h264-videos-using-dxva/
This refers to how certain out of spec videos cannot be played on certain GPUs. Nvidia seems to use a Shader Program to decode so they can update/tweak on the fly. ATI uses UVD which is physical hardware so it is not easy to change or update to the latest supported codec implementation. Looks like Nvidia has the upper hand here.

 

You should be able to play source (half life 2 level) games just fine. The 3200 only has 64 megs I believe of ram on it with a 64 bit bus. Its not very much but if you can keep your framebuffer inside it , it will help alot. 64MB is more than enough for 1080p framebuffer. The problem is that its really dependent on main system ram for anything after your frame buffer.

The reason the hd 4330 is so much faster is the amount of pixel shaders and the amount of texture units along with bandwidth.. The radeon hd 4330 has 4 rops , 8 texture units and 80 pixel shaders. The 4330 also has 512 megs of 64 bit gddr 3 at 600mhz. It gives you 9.6GB of bandwidth. The ddr 2 memory in these notebooks is ddr 2 800 I believe. Thats 200mhz clock on the ram and it gives 6.4ghz of bandwidth. So you can see that the 4330 has its own bandwidth , while the 4330 is dependent mostly on the notebooks main memory. Whats interesting is the 4330 is just a lower clocked 4530/70 . The 4570 offers a 680mhz clock speed with 800mhz ram giving you 12.8GB/s of bandwidth. Hopefully for those that grabbed the 4330 (like me ) can over clock it when gaming . Even 20mhz core and 80mhz ram would put it in 4530 performance levels.

That doesn't mean the 4330 is all that. Even last gen add ins like the 3650 had better performance and had 22.40GB/s of badnwidth. OF course those are crazy high prices.

With the 3200 as long as you don't mind playing at 800x600 you should get great performance. But none of these are ideal to game with. I really just plan on playing older rpgs and lotro and hopefully SW tor when it comes out. But I will mainly use my rig at home for gaming.

 

Here is more information I gathered.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-radeon,2218-6.html

Toms seems to play the mobility radeon hd 3200 pretty low in the list. The 4330 is most likely right with the hd 4350 on the grouping above.

Here is the desktop verison of the 3200 igp. results should be similar except you have a faster cpu driving it. http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/motherboards/article.php/10703_3732211__1
According to them at 1024x768
Not playable Quake 4 , World of Conflict (under 30 fps
Playable Far cry , Fear , Company of heroes , Unreal tourny 3 (over 30 fps)

Here it is again 1280x1024
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03/04/amd_780g_chipset/

NOt playable Warhammer mark of chaos , supreme commander , Prey

here it is again , and also the 4330.

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3654&p=4

Don't compare the hd 3200 to the 4330 here simply because of the rest of the system. The hd 3200 is paired up with a faster dual core cpu and so in alot of games the 4330 is cpu limited with its single core 1.6ghz cpu the 3200's dual core 2.1ghz cpu is able to max out the gpu.

 

True that we will probably have to look eslse where for real gaming. The dilemma for most people with the dm3 is that with intel you either have a)very weak integrated graphic and long battery life or b) crazy graphics with overkill processor and of course heat (possible crashes) and no battery life (SP9300/g105m in such a small casing...).

I cannot pretend to be a wiz and we don't know all the test specs yet but from what I read everywhere HD3200 seems to be striking a much better perf than intels integrated graphics- of course at the price of "some" battery life. (although after reading Snipester's comment I now have some doubts-hopefully those unplayable format are very few, or can be played from applications relying on the cpu)

Not too weak, neither too powerful/consuming. DM3Z is "relatively" a better balance. Plus the option of combining switchable/powersaving graphics+overclocking/perf.boosting 4330 (thanks pasta4u) makes it even more interesting.