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HP Pavilion dm3

By Damien Virulhapan, ZDNet.com.au on December 1st, 2009

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Overview

With a feature set that is aimed at maximising battery life and portability, the dm3-1011tu is a stylish and competent ultraportable for those constantly on the go.

Editors' rating:

7.0/10

RRP:

AU$1,399.00

The good

  • Lightweight
  • Solid build quality
  • Good battery life

The bad

  • No optical drive
  • Multi-touch trackpad may take getting used to
  • Annoying trialware

 

Design

When HP was designing the dm3-1011tu, it's obvious the company had one goal in mind — to make an ultraportable as sleek as possible. Weighing in at 1.9kg and less than 1 inch thin with the lid closed, the dm3-1011tu is well suited if you're after an ultraportable notebook that has style to boot.

The 13.3-inch glossy widescreen LED supports a maximum resolution of 1366x768. The hinge of the screen, as well as the overall build quality of the notebook, is solid — a good sign for an ultraportable notebook.

The keyboard of the dm3-1011tu looks very similar to that found on Apple's range of MacBooks, where the keys are embedded into the casing of the notebook. Due to the size of the notebook, HP has dropped the in-built numpad, and the size of the up and down arrow keys has been split in half.

The mouse buttons aren't as soft to the touch as we would have liked, and does feel a tad sticky when in use. The multi-touch trackpad, coated in a fingerprint attracting glossy silver, can be frustrating to get used to if you aren't too familiar with the finger gestures to scroll and re-size windows. But to save your sanity, there's always the tried and true method of using your index fingers.

Features

The 32-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium Edition is the operating system of choice for the dm3-1011tu. HP has strangely decided to install 4GB of DDR3, meaning that 1GB will go to waste, as only 3GB will be detected.

In keeping with the ultraportable angle, an Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) SU7300 processor running at 1.3GHz is installed, while video processing is handled by Intel's GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics.

Due to space restrictions an optical drive is missing, but there are four USB ports should you feel the need to invest in an external optical drive. Other connectivity options come in the form of a multi-card reader, VGA connector, a HDMI connector, a 10/100Mb Ethernet port and Intel 5300 802.11n wireless LAN.

Unfortunately, HP's pre-installed trialware version of Norton Internet Security loves constantly letting you know that it's looking for a special place on the 320GB hard drive. Another annoying piece of software that's managed to find itself onto the dm3-1011tu is HP's Media Dock which sits on your Windows desktop. It functions similar to the media hotkeys found on many other notebooks and gives you quick access to your media, as well as HP's Advisor if you need help with configuring your system.

Performance

The battery lasted for just over a respectable three hours and 42 minutes while playing our XviD encoded test video on the Maximum Performance profile with brightness and volume pushed to the limit.

Running 3DMark06 on default settings resulted in a paltry score of just 792, which was really no surprise on a notebook such as this. The combination of the ULV processor and the integrated graphics restrict what you can do, but it's the price you pay for portability. PCMark05 sadly refused to run.

With a feature set that is aimed at maximising battery life and portability, the dm3-1011tu is a stylish and competent ultraportable for those constantly on the go. While it's not going to set the world on fire with its feature set, it's perfect for those that can't get enough of the brushed aluminium look.

Specifications

Display
Natural resolution (max) 1366 x 768 pixels
Diagonal screen size 13.3 inch
Drives
Primary hard drive 320 GB
Connectivity
Network interface 10/100 LAN, 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n
USB ports 4
VGA Yes
HDMI Yes
Memory
Amt of RAM 4GB
Graphics
Graphics hardware Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
General
Dimensions (H x W x D) 31.3 x 326 x 230 mm
Weight 1.91 kg
Laptop type Midweight
Software
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
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Talkback

1.9kg is NOT ultraportable - its a tank!

I have a 0.6kg Sony P Series and that IS ultraportable. It even has a 1.83GHz Atom and can run Win7 with Aero.

Before that I had a 1.1kg Fujitsu P7010 10.1" and it was not bad.

But who would want to carry around 1.9kg 'just in case'. That is a drag on the shoulders.

PatanjaliPatanjali December 1st, 2009
Report offensive content Reply (0) (0)

Does HP Support exist???

Nine days after I got the DM3, it started having disk errors. Even partition table got corrupt.

It was a nightmare trying to call HP Support, having to speak to 'experts' in India who do not seem to understand the language.

After battling with the support person and getting him to agree it is a hardware error, I am still battling with him to provide me with RMA.

He needed a copy of my receipt to be sent to him via EMAIL. But when I did that, the EMAIL bounced with "mailbox full" diagnostic.

I tried recovering with my standalone Windows 7 disk, and got through up to loading drivers, but their support site does not work when I try to download drivers.

Now it has got into problems again with disk errors.

Is this the standard of HP support for Australia? Can someone comment? My support case number is 460 893 706.

AnonymousAnonymous December 20th, 2009
Report offensive content Reply (0) (0)

EMAIL bounced with "mailbox full" diagnostic

How big was the file that you created when you scanned your copy of the receipt?

In my experience, attachments of this nature can all too often bounce when sent to organisations who fail to disclose their policy on their max allowed size of file attachment. It's almost always because the sender, in this case you, unfortunately, has exceeded inadvertently the maximum file attachment size.

If you think this may have happened here, then you might want to try sending the scan as a smaller file. It's only a copy of a receipt, so it doesn't need to be of the highest quality. Compress the file, if necessary, to keep it at a maximum of 1MB.

Chris CDChris CD December 22nd, 2009
Report offensive content Reply (0) (0)
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