*HP dm4t (1XXX series) Owners Lounge!*

Ok, Fed ex came back and I just got my laptop. I have no idea if this is just the lightining in my entire house, but this laptop is really pink to me. I mean I was expecting silver, like the dm3 or anything other silver laptop, but this looks really pink to me. I really do not like the pink at all. My camera broke, so I cant get any good pics. I really think I will end up returning this. Sad, everything else, I really like.

So I am still playing with it... sometimes it looks really pink and sometimes it looks pink/bronze... I am not sure... I really like everything else, and it is a great laptop, minus the weird glow of pink. Hopefully, its just me, I will get some second opinions and let you guys know. Anyone else get their laptop and think its sort of pink?

 

ahh i want mine right now but my status still hasn't update!!!! I hope it's not just sitting in transit right now and that it's actually on the way. As for the initial reviews, one says pinkish and one says silver.. which is it? Is the trackpad as gimmicky as the review claims it is?

Pics please! =)

...waiting... waiting... waiting...

 

I like the track pad. I dont have any issues with it. As for silver, I dont think this is silver. I can see maybe a hint of silver, but its a weird champagneish color. I really like the speakers too. They are much louder/clearer than my old dell.

 

Mine's been out for delivery for 6 hours now. what the hell.

 

Pics please!

 

lol.. sorry to still hear that.. just be patient.. atleast you know that it'll arrive really soon.. i wish i could say that.. why isn't mine updating!? ughhh..

glad to hear that you like the trackpad so that's one thing i dont have to worry about. so the color is something that was kind of unexpected huh? Definitely not what the websites show? I guess for some, the color of the metal is kind of a hit or miss. I don't mind it not being totally silver, but as long as it's not actually "pink".. im all for it. but from what you guys are saying, the notebook itself is good looking and well built which is never a bad thing.

 

Ok, so mine was delivered at 11:30am. The keyboard has wonky keys on it (!) but what's really irritating me is the fan. Even with the ATI turned off it is still on ALL the time and it isn't as quiet as I would like.

I have tried turning it off in the bios and also turned the cooling to passive in power options but alas, it still makes noise... Anyone ever come across a fix for this on a DV6, DV7 etc.? I believe they had the same problem but haven't been able to find a solution.

On a more positive note, the trackpad is pretty good actually and mine doesn't look pink at all... Pics on the way!

 

Here's some pic's taken with my phone

 

Whoa, those keyboard keys stick up a lot more than I thought they would.

 

Initial impressions,

- Build quality is top notch, at least compared to my UL80. The keyboard exhibits no flex and the hinges are tight but not too tight. The metal chassis is very strong

- I don't know what Laptopmag was talking about because the touchpad is excellent. There is no lag when clicking or moving and the multitouch is well executed.

- I will admit that, in the right light, it does look kind of pink. It is natural light that seems to do it for me.

- The screen is amazing. It is crisp and bright and the viewing angles are great.

 

How's your fan noise? Does it ever turn off?

 

I hear it spinning when I put my ear right up to the laptop but otherwise it is just as faint as the hard drive. It is quieter, while plugged in, than my UL80 on battery.

More impressions,

- Even with the extended battery it is the same weight as the UL80, maybe slightly lighter.

- The boot time does suck but hopefully it will be better once I get rid of all the crapware and unneeded start-up programs

- The USB ports are a little tight, really tight. I had to jam my wireless mouse receiver in there.

- Not nearly as much bloatware as my UL80

- I charged the battery to 100% ad it has been there for over 20 minutes ???

 

Hey everyone, I have been stalking this thread since day one and finally registered to see TexanMilk's pictures.

Does anyone else's shipment still say In Transit in Anchorage, AK? I ordered in the morning on day one, so I should be around the same point as everyone else. It is being shipped to Omaha, Nebraska, so it is kind of annoying that abaddon is in Florida and he already has it.

 

I think they all went through Memphis but mine didn't say out for delivery, I called FedEx and they told me over the phone it was on the truck!

 

So after playing with it for awhile....still pink

Keyboard: I like it alot, easy to type on
Trackpad: Looks nice and is easy to use
Screen: Looks nice, plays videos nicely, I like it, not the best screen but better than average (imo)
Weight: I have the extended battery, and it is still pretty light
Speakers: pretty good for a laptop. I like the level of loudness and quality

Overall I havent really thrown a whole lot at it, but it is really a good solid computer. The one thing I need to figure out is how to keep it from looking pink. I am going to take it outside and see how it looks.

Oh and I dont really hear a lot from the fan... its a light spinning sound, but nothing major.

 

Curious as to how the graphic card switching works. I didn't even know ATI cards could be paired with Intel's. Is it a manual switch that needs to be flipped? Does it require log out/restart? How long does the switch take?

 

So no unboxing videos?? Looks like I'll have to wait till Tuesday to get mine

 

Manual switch just like the Nvidia graphic switching. Click on the icon in the tray, go to "Configure Switchable Graphics", and viola. Process takes a couple of seconds and the screen flashes just like on my UL80.

 

Thanks for the quick reply abaddon. Mind if I ask a few more questions? Which battery do you have, and do you have any real-world estimates on battery life? Mostly curious about the integrated graphics' battery life. If you have a 9-cell battery, could you take a photo of it to see how it sticks out?

 

I have the 9 cell and I would love to take a picture but my camera is not what you would call "good" or "halfway decent". The battery sticks out about .25'', it feels like much less than other extended batteries I have used.

For the battery life estimate I would guess about 8-9 hours of real use. I unplugged it from the power brick when it was 100% charged at 5:45 PM and it is now 7:45 PM and the battery has discharged 22%. That is about 5.5 minutes per 1% so it would wok out to 550 minutes (slightly over 9 hours). This is while downloading and installing updates and programs as well so it could even get better, especially once the battery is calibrated .

 

Is there a rule a thumb for charging the battery. I seem to recall most new laptops coming with half charged batteries - and I wasn't sure if it's best to let them run down to 5% or less and then put it on the charger. Or can you just charge it right away up until 100% and then go from there. I just don't want to screw things up right off the bat. I didn't even realize batteries become calibrated.

 

What I always do is charge it to 100% right when I get it and then run it down all the way once or twice. For me this always increases the battery life to more than I got the first charge, even if only a little.

 

Thanks abaddon, you rule! Would you happen to have some sort of scale? I wish manufacturer's would give the approx. weight with different sized batteries.

Is the optical drive easily removable? I imagine that would be a simple way to shed some weight when mobile. Even better would be if someone made some sort of tray to put in a second hard drive, assuming it's a standard SATA connection. I really don't see the need for an integrated optical drive in laptops these days.

 

I don't have a great scale but I am getting about 4.75 pounds, which is slightly less than the 4.9 I get on the same scale with my UL80.

Not sure about the optical drive because I haven't taken that close a look at the innards yet but I assume it wouldn't be hard to remove, laptop optical drives rarely are. And they do make hard drive caddies for optical drives, btw. There is a whole thread about it somewhere in the aftermarket upgrades section. Here

 

Thanks dude. I look forward to finding unboxing videos and more reviews on the web over the weekend. Was so close to getting mine today. But arrived at my local FedEx facility too late. Have fun with it!

 

sweet. just got home and there it was.....

anybody planning on doing a clean install? i am!

 

Nope. There is really not much bloatware on here and I am fine with just optimizing it. Feels fast enough for me.

 

Do you plan to game on that? Any reports on performance?

 

Gonna run 3dMark and some benchmarks tomorrow morning and post a review that I am typing up now.

 

Great, thanks.

 

Hey drewbudd! Welcome to the forums.

Mine says the same thing. It did say in transit from Anchorage before, but now it's back to the In Transit in Anchorage, AK. Don't know why it changed on me. I live in St. Louis, so maybe ours was going to Kansas City or Iowa or something? Same flight, and it got canceled? I don't know, we'll see...

 

Yeah mine is still in international shipment release

 

May 28, 2010 2:37 AM Arrived at FedEx location
May 28, 2010 7:00 PM Departed FedEx location

... What have they been doing the whole day!? ... sigh.. maybe tomorrow...

 

Has anyone else seen the new option as far as graphics cards?

1GB ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5450 switchable graphics
+$200.00

$100 more than the 5450 with 512MB of ram. Is this supposed to be the 5650 or what? If so, that is awesome! I may send mine back and get this upgrade!

 

It has been that way for a couple of days. I think they are just trying to make money off of people because more VRAM would do nothing to increase performance. If it turns out to be the 5650 I am calling first thing Monday morning to get mine upgraded.

 

Yeah, we'll see. I thought it may be a misprint, or the extra VRAM.

So jealous that some of you have your PC's and I don't...

 

I don't think it is a misprint because it has been there for 3 or 4 days and it says it everywhere. Under the specs, in the help me decide part, and on the customization. Besides, I don't think they want this competing with the Envy 14 that well. Notice the GPU in the Envy 15 and 17 is better than that of dv6 and dv7

 

Could you please explain why this 5650 is so amazing? I dunno much about video cards

 

It is not amazing but it is a high midrange GFX card capable of playing pretty much any game at at least medium settings. The 5450 is a low midrange card and can play pretty much any game as well, just at lower settings. To be honest, if it does turn out that the 5650 is available on the dm4 (I don't think it will) I will call HP and see if they can give me the upgrade for free. If they don't give it to me for free I am fine with the 5450.

 

It'll get looser over time.
(That's what she said.)

 

gizmodian with the rimshot

 

It does look like it does have a slight pink hue in your pictures. Quite disappointing. It seems like a solid computer, but I don't know about owning a laptop that will look pink.

 

Yea, mine now says Departed FedEx Location. The shipment probably showed up a bit late for the flight to the midwest yesterday. I was starting to worry that it was lost.

Last year at this same time UPS lost a camera I had bought for a 3-week summer photography class. 2 weeks into the class I finally got my camera. Now I'm always worried about my packages.

 

I agree with the comments so far. Very well made. Color is fine. It's more champagnish than pink and definitely more silver looking in some lights. It looks really good.

One thing that is tough to get used to though is the trackpad location. It works fine but because it is so far under your right hand, the cursor jumps all over the place while I type. It's driving me a bit nuts. I will see what I can do to adjust it. Any ideas??

M

 

Are you talking about the pictures on page 21? If so, I don't see any pink at all in those pictures.

 

I agree that it looks more champagne than pink.

Mine says departed as well. Finally an update!

 

I can't really see the champagne color either. Does anyone have a better picture to show this color? Otherwise, I'm just going to keep on believing that it's just pure silver color, haha

 

What kind of battery did it come with? Is it the same as the one's in the dv6, dv7, etc? Any info on battery model number or whatever would be greatly appreciated.

 

Yes, the pics on page 21. Especially the pic with the touch pad. The area around it looks like a very light pink.

 

I am extremely disappointed. I had to send it back, and HP is building me a new one. The build quality was horrid. The track-pad wasn't installed correctly and was protruding out of the laptop. The keyboard wasn't seated correctly and wasn't level. It was sticking out of the laptop on the right side. The intel/ati stickers on the front were crooked. There were scratches all over the outside of the case.

Now I have to wait for fedex to ship it back, hp to build me a new one, and for fedex to ship the new one back. Great job HP. I guess they don't have any standards or quality control.