HP dm4t Review

Mine does not get hot at all. It barely gets warm, haha.

 

Awesome, thanks for the reply. Can anyone else who owns one comment on their experiences?

 

Mine gets to 90C when running graphic and cpu intensive programs, but I am returning it to get a new one, I think mine's defective.

 

hi abaddon4180,
thanks a lot for the reply. i checked the graph card driver i installed and it is Intel HD driver.
hhaaii

 

Osucom, how warm does the bottom side get? Thanks!

 

The vent o the left blows alot of (not so)hot air when I watch videos at full screen. Mostly youtube vids. The area to the left underside gets warm, but not hot. The right side stays cool.

The palm area to the left of the touchpad does get warm, but no where near hot. The right side DOESN'T even warm up. It always feel cool to the touch.

Incase you're wondering, Here's my specs:
-i5 430m
-Intel graphisHD
-500gb hard drive
-High Performance powerplan:
--Never/Never/Never brightness at 100% and ALWAYS hooked up to the outlet.

One complain I have about mine is that not every key stroke registers. Hopefully it's not defective. I would say that about 10 characters on this whole post didn't register. Mostly the spaces.

Another thing to add in is that the CPU never goes over 60% on mine. Usually when I use the computer, I would have 3-8 tabs open, FooBar2000 for my music, and rs in highest detail... shutup... Sometimes a video on fullscreen with youtube.

 

I bought this laptop and received it about a week ago and I have a pretty big issue.

It seems that during audio or video playback, it intermittently freezes for a second or two and buzzes quite loudly.


Does anyone have the same issue or have experience fixing it? Thanks guys.

 

I had the same problem for a couple of days but once the keyboard loosened up a bit it was fine.

 

Hopefully mine would loosen up also. It's almost 2 weeks ago since I bought it, I've been using it alot for the past week.

 

Yes same here! It does that but freezes and has that buzzing going on until I force reboot with the power button. I'm going to return it if it keeps doing that unless I can find a solution.

 

hi abaddon,

I wonder if you were using discrete graphic or integrated graphic when you tested your battery life?

thank you!

 

Integrated

 

Would you still choose this laptop over the envy 14? I have ordered the 14 but am now reconsidering. Do you think that the dm4t could withstand being put into a backpack every day for 4 years?

 

The dm4t can definitely handle being put into a backpack, but if you need graphics power and want the better display then the Envy 14 is the way to go.

 

Thanks for replying. I'm just going to stick with the envy b/c my major uses some software that utilizes lots of graphics. But I do still think the dm4t looks like a nice little package.

 

I have a question: are you really going to be using the software on your laptop that often? I'm heading off to college to do mechanical engineering and they have computer clusters to do the intensive software tasks... doesn't getting the software on your laptop cost a lot of money?

 

thank you for the reply.

I have another question: do you think it will make a big difference in battery life if I don't upgrade the graphic card into switchable graphic? Also, is there any difference in display between intel HD graphic and discrete mode in switchable graphic?

thank you once again!

 

1) Doubtful, since when you are on battery life you are using the integrated card, not the dedicated. If you want more battery life, get the 9-cell battery.

 

My school has a really sweet vpn setup. Some programs we get to install for free like matlab through th schools license, but most are vpn..hence the windows 7 prooofessional necessity. But for REALLY intensive stuff I'll probably just use labs.

 

That's sweet... may I ask where you are going? I can't find any info from my college about anything related to computers.. I'm just assuming they have clusters to do intensive work.

 

North Carolina State University. They told us about that at an overnight day during the spring. Are you going to orientation? If so, ask there, or email someone in the tech department beforehand. Your college should have labs dedicated to engineers. At NCSU they have really, really powerful computers there.

 

Already went to orientation and they mentioned nothing of technology or computers... hmm. I'm sure they do..

 

Someone asked earlier but no one answered... so I ask again; What's the difference between the " 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard)" and the " High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard)"

 

The high capacity 6 cell has roughly 12% more capacity.

 

Thanks abaddon but do you think the extra 12% is worth the $20. Because if my calculation are right a 12% higher capacity won't give up to an hour of extra battery life.

 

It really depends. If you want to keep your thin form factor and get slightly more battery life, around 30 minutes, then I think that the $20 is worth it. If you don't mind it being a little thicker the 9 cell is only $10 more than the high cap 6 cell and will give 2-3 hours more. But the regular 6 cell gets about 4.75 hours and if that is enough for you than don't spend the extra money.

 

Thanks again but I think the regular 6 cell will just be enough for me

 

I am getting ready to purchase a HP dm4T but I need a little help. I will be using it for school, internet browsing, e-mail, and once in a while to watch DVD’s. I will not be playing games on this laptop.

Do I need the 512 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450 Graphics or will the Intel HD Graphics be ok?

I can't decide between the 6 or 9 cell battery.

What is the difference between the Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth and the Intel Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth? Which one is better?

 

No you dont need the discrete graphics. Intel HD graphics would be fine.

Stay with 6 cell if you want the lightweight flush look.

Go with the Intel Wireless-N card.

 

I just picked up my dm4t and I couldn't be happier! I got it from Office Depot for $723.79 after tax and the $50 mail in rebate. I think I got a decent deal.

Intel Core i5-430M 2.26GHz dual-core processor
14" 1366x768 widescreen LED
4GB RAM
500GB hard drive
dual-layer DVD burner
802.11n wireless with Bluetooth
webcam
Gigabit Ethernet
6-cell battery
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

 

I called HP to determine the specs of the 3 battery options.
6 Cell - 55 WHr
6 Cell HC - 62 WHr
9 Cell - 9x WHr

Because the mobile iSeries Processors idle at ~ 5W, don't expect to get an extra hour out of the HC. However, IMO $60 for the 9 cell battery is a steal. The only problem is that as batteries age, even if they are not used, they lose charge. So getting 2 batteries at the same time isn't generally recommended. However 7+ Hrs under light load for the 9cell and 4+ for the 6cell (11Hrs) seems awesome, especially for living off campus next year

 

How will the intel integrated card do for watching 1080p HD youtube videos? When I watched it on my sisters dv4 with the intel card it chugged pretty bad. Is the ATi card recommended for watching HD video?

 

this is something I'd like to know as well. I fraking hate chugging around on those videos and on anything in general

 

I'm pretty sure the Intel card can play 1080p videos fine. I think it was one of the things Intel boasted about.

 

I too am heavily considering buying the dm4t, it looks like the perfect laptop balancing power, battery life, weight and cost. However I have two concerns I was hoping people on this forum could help me out with:

1) I've read bad things about the touchpad, both regular consumers and professional reviews have mentioned this issue. Does the touchpad just take getting used to? I did some research and found that there is a driver update for it, does this help much? This is an important issue for me becuase I'll be using just the touchpad, no mouse.

2) Watching video without a graphics card. Will HD video from netflix, youtube, and hulu play perfectly fine with the integrated graphics? I will not gaming at all on this.

Thanks in advance for your input, as I'm a full-time student I can't afford a bad purchase. Also if anyone could repost a pic of the dm4t with the 9 cell (the pix that where up no longer work), I would greatly appreciate this.

-Brandon

 

see the above response....but yes it should play fine.

 

i can confirm that the integrated Intel card can play YouTube 1080p video smooth and stutter free. haven't tried Hulu or any other video though.


as for the mouse pad, it's not bad. took me a day to get used to, but it's perfectly fine now.

 

I was ready to send mine back about 18 hours ago. After tweaking some settings, I'm rather enjoying it now. 1-finger scroll FTW!

 

Thanks, it's good the i5 will handle HD video w/o any help from a graphics card.

So there's no way to scroll up and down with the right side of the touchpad like on my older HP? Has anyone had issues with scrolling? Did the driver update help?

That would be very dissapointing, but not too surprising as alot of OEMs are trying to mimic apple's multi-touch scheme to varying degrees of success.

 

Yes you can. There is an option to specify "scroll zones" in the touchpad setup and you can even change how big they are. Use the right side for vertical and the bottom for horizontal scrolling. I set one finger scrolling up like this. Make sure to set lines per scroll to "1" in the wheel tab of the mouse setting.

 

Hey guys, just got my new dm4t the other day and absolutely love it! I have had a ton of different notebooks in the past 2-3 years, ranging from Acers to and Apple Macbook Pro 13. I'm not going to lie, for the money, this is by far the best notebook that I have ever owned! It has everything that I could ask for in a very attractive and well built form! Unlike some out there I actually really like the touchpad, it has a very satisfying click to it and works flawlessly for me.

I pretty much went all out on my configuration of my dm4. From the Core i5 540m with Turbo Boost up to 3.06GHz to 8GB of RAM, and the high capacity 6 cell battery all for $899 with the $400 off coupon. I also got them to give me another $50 back on the purchase so all my options with shipping and tax came out to $904 out the door. Not too bad for a "fully" loaded 14" notebook! I decided to skip on the upgrade to the i7 as it was an extra $100 for a few MHz difference. Also didn't need a dedicated graphics card as I don't game on it.

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HP Pavilion dm4t customizable Notebook PC
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-540M Dual Core processor (2.53GHz, 3MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.06GHz
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• FREE Upgrade to 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• Intel(R) HD Graphics
• 14.0" diagonal High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768)
• SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
• HP TrueVision Webcam + Fingerprint Reader + Digital Microphone
• Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
• Full-size island-style keyboard
• High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard)
• Microsoft(R) Office Starter 2010
• HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

-------

The build quality on this is far superior to nearly all of the other laptops that I have owned, except of course for the Macbook. I honestly was looking to get another Macbook but when they decided to keep the C2D's instead of upgrading them to the i Series like the others, I decided otherwise. THe i5 540 also makes this the fastest notebook I have owned as well, and of course the 8GB of RAM help it as well. The 500GB 7200rpm HD is also nice and speedy and can hold all my music and movies without a problem. I thought the integrated graphics might be an issue with 1080p Hulu or Netflix, but am happy to report that it plays them flawlessly. Previously I have only had 13.3" laptops and was a bit hesitant to go to 14"s. It's actually a nice upgrade. The extra screen real estate is nice while adding barely any bulk to the package. I also like how the 6 cell battery sits completely flush with the unit, unlike some other 6 cells that stick out even though it is their standard battery.

Overall it is and excellent laptop with a great build. I definitely recommend anyone looking for a nice thin and light computer to definitely pick one of these up!

 

Glad you like the unit. The DM4t is a very solid notebook. Congrats on your little beast.

 

Does anybody know what model the intel wifi-n card is? Would it by anychance be either Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6200, Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300? If so I was wondering if it may be able to do the intel My WiFi and wireless display features.

Nevermind... found the three options

Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000 802.11b/g/n 1x2
Atheros AR9285 802.11 a/b/g/n 2x2 WiFi adapter
Broadcom 43224AGN 802.11a/b/g/draft-n WiFi

 

The OP's review mentioned over 6 hours of battery life! however, that was with the extended battery and some great optimization. How much battery life would one get with the regular battery?

 

Hi guys,
I had my dm4t configured with i7 cpu, 512MB ATI graphic card and 160GB SSD...I returned it back a few weeks ago because I could say the fan was even working intensively when I was browsing the internet (simple email checking and web surfing)...Other than that, everything was pretty alright with DM4T and I am now waiting to find a good deal to buy the same machine but with i5-540m in the hope that it doesn't get that warm anymore and I could get more form the 6cell battery...
Anyone has the heat problem with i5-540M?

 

yes, from the 3 i sent back, 1 cpu almost got to 80C under light load and gpu got to 93C. other had very high temps as well, though not as high

 

Considering the reviewer (abaddon) had no heat problems with his i5, I'm sure that it will stay quite cool. All i5 processors generate around the same amount of heat.

 

Does anyone have suggestions for a good laptop sleeve for the dm4?

 

I recommend the hp sleeve. It is compact, has a handle, made of neoprene with a plush interior, and it has an extra side pocket for your ac adapter or other things. It also comes in many different styles. Some that match the etchings of various pavilion laptops.

 

Hi,
I just bought my dm4 laptop and am using it. I'm wondering if there is a physical button for the switchable graphic? If there is, where is it?

THank you