I love my new laptop! I have no complaints about it. It is everything I expected and does the work well. Prior to purchasing this, I did my research though; I knew what to expect. Physically, it looks great. The only minor downer is that I wish the keyboard was lit or something (but those are just small details, relatively speaking). The battery life is awesome; it easily lasts 7 hrs of continuous use. I read a review somewhere about the screen resolution not being the best, but it looks great to me. Clear enough (including webcam). Another thing I like is that it does not heat up as much as other laptops. The size is also great. After browsing netbooks (which I didn't really want but felt limited to because of my budget as a student), and browsing laptops, I am extremely satisfied with the choice I made; I do not feel limited in any way! HP made a great combination of netbook and laptop a reality!!!
UPDATE (8/19/12): Windows 8 RP (Release Preview) works out of the box. Windows 8 on dm1-3020us is much faster than Windows 7. I am using W8 RP on it and enjoying its performance.
1. OVERALL QUALITY: The notebook has high quality and solid feel to it. Compare to other notebooks/netbooks, the plastic is strong and it does not flex. It doesn't feel cheap. Very impressive. It is also stylish and thin. The whole notebook is flushed (top & bottom) there is no obtrusive element. It also comes with "HP Protect Smart" when your notebook is accidentally dropped, the hard drive is protected because of the design inside. DM1-3020us also stays cool on your lap. It is just warm (never hot!).
2. SCREEN: The screen is bright enough I use one lower than brightest setting. The resolution is incredible 1366 x 768 in 11.6" screen! You will not miss anything. The downside is that all the fonts are small. Although you could customize the text to be larger, it is not recommended. Also I prefer matte finish over glossy, but dm1-3020us comes with glossy finish, and I do not mind. But if you MUST have matte finish, then consider other netbooks.
3. BATTERY LIFE: I am not a gamer and I do not watch online movies or TV shows. I use it for word processing and browsing the web, check emails. With Wi-Fi on all the time and screen brightness one setting lower than the brightest, I used it for 7 hours!
4. KEYBOARD: This is quality full-sized keyboard. It is "Chiclet" styled keyboard. The keys are big enough for my thick fingers can comfortably type. And each key is spaced from each other generously. The keyboard does not flex when you press down. It is rock solid. However, each alphabet letter is positioned at the center of the key and not at the left corner. This might be a problem for those who use 2nd language keyboard transparent stickers.
5. TOUCHPAD: while others are not thrilled with the touchpad, I did not see any difference between the touchpad of Asus 1000HA and dm1. Since I use mini wireless mouse, this is not a problem. But when I did use the touchpad, it was fine for basic function. But pinch in & out needed work. However, I like the fact that you could disable the touchpad with two taps.
6. PERFORMANCE: It boots up fast and all the programs respond quickly. The AMD Vision chip is marvelous. Much, much faster than netbooks of Intel Atom processor class in the same price range. It rivals the speed of i3 chip of my other work notebook.
7. SIZE & WEIGHT: It is about 8.4" x 11.5" and about 1" thick. It is thinner than Asus eeePC 1000HA, but 1" larger due to the screen size. But it weighs just 3.4 lbs. It is small and light enough to carry it anywhere.
8. SOFTWARE: My dm1-3020us came with FREE MS Office 2010 Home and Student DVD (OEM)! I just had to activate the Office preinstalled. Other programs ("Bloatware" or 3rd party softwares) included, but you could easily remove them. BUT it is not wise to uninstall "HP Support Assistant" program it has very helpful "HP CoolSense" program that quiets the fan noise automatically. Other HP Media programs, you could select which to keep and which to uninstall depending on your need.
FEW NOTES:
[1] Upgrade your BIOS from f.3 to f.12 by visiting HP website.
[2] 3GB RAM is plenty for casual Office work, email, online TV viewing, and web browsing.
[3] Update to Windows 7 SP1.
FOR LINUX Users:
[1] I was able to install SnowLinux 11.04 (variation of Ubuntu 11.04). But WiFi & Touchpad do not work out of the box. You need to manually install WiFi driver (RT5390) and install touchpad driver from Synaptic Package Manager.
(UPDATE: Ubuntu 11.10 & Kubuntu 11.10 work out of the box including the Wi-Fi).
[2] dm1-3020us comes with 4 primary partitions, so you need to delete one partition to install Linux distro of your choice. I deleted (D:) partition.
[3] All in all, if you could install WiFi, then it is a great! I am dualbooting Windows 7 with SnowLinux 11.04 and I am enjoying the notebook immensely!
All in all, I am very happy with this notebook. HP did an excellent job! In short, dm1-3020us has the portability of a netbook, but the power of a notebook with longer battery life! Highly recommended.
Buy HP Pavilion dm1-3020us Entertainment Laptop - Black Now
Well I needed a new laptop since late 2010, but wanted to wait as long as possible for the new AMD FUSION (Vision) APU chip that is designed specifically for this class of "notbook" computers (netbook with mainstream notebook power). If you have read any reviews on the internet, they pretty much align with my experiences and expectations. The only difference on my system is the 8gb RAM upgrade, which brought my price just above $600. I'm fine with that as I tend to load alot of programs at once and could be useful for future Windows upgrade.Good:
-Excellent HD video playback; high resolution screen (note: I prefer a 12.1 screen, but 11.6 is acceptable; I don't know how people can tolerate 10 inch screens)
-Enough RAM and HDD space to meet your needs
-High quality audio output for such a compact machine
-Great battery life (lives up to 6.5 hours of normal use)
-Lukewarm heat on the bottom. It's so nice to actually have it on my lap without a damn laptop table.
-Lightweight, nice style design
Cons:
-CPU speed (1.6 ghz) slow for mainstream games, but more than sufficient for business users (i.e. Productivity tools).
-No optical drive, but you can get a decent one for $40 online. HP sells optional external drive with Blu Ray capability but it's $130 extra
-HP bloatware (you can uninstall of course)
-Fan is not loud, but noticeable if in a quiet room without ambient sound. (I'll take that over a hot bottom any day)
-Touchpad is probably the worst experience. Don't care for it, so I try to use a mini-mouse when possible
If HP offered a 12.1 inch version, then this unit is a MUST-BUY if you are in the market for a ultra portable and ultra affordable netbook.
Read Best Reviews of HP Pavilion dm1-3020us Entertainment Laptop - Black Here
I purchased this amazing little laptop last month. So far it's performed beyond my expectations. The dualcore 1.6-GHz AMD E-350 CPU is fast. While surfing the web, I get about 6 hours 20 minutes with medium brightness. Speaking of which, the 11.6" LED screen is particularly good. I'm impressed with the brightness and resolution of such a small screen. Speakers are excellent. Sound is crisp and clear. The hard drive is better than most laptops in this price range because its 7200RPM.I upgraded to 8GB RAM for ~$80. It was extremely easy. The bottom of the laptop has a snap on cover that you can remove and have access to the RAM, HDD, etc. Upgrading to a SSD would be extremely easy. I also bought an external Blu-ray player that is bus powered with a single USB cable. Tested out Inception on Blu-ray and it performed flawlessly.
Common concerns:
-> Touchpad When you double-tap the top left corner of the touchpad, a small orange light comes on in its place indicating that the touchpad has been turned off, so one can type without constantly hitting it. Double-tap again to enable it.
-> Keyboard While the keyboard does not have dedicated PgUp or PgDn keys, all you have to do is hold FN and the up or down arrow keys. The left and right keys also function as Home and End buttons when you hold FN.
-> Bloatware HP bloatware is very easy to get rid of and at the same time you can keep your essential HP stuff. When you start the laptop, go to the Bios and hit recovery. You should have a "Minimized Image Recovery" option from the recovery menu. This will do a clean install of Windows with NO bloatware and only the required HP components and drivers. Works like a charm, and your laptop will be faster!
Overall, I say this laptop is a must buy if you're looking for an ultraportable.
Want HP Pavilion dm1-3020us Entertainment Laptop - Black Discount?
Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I am actually reviewing from this laptop. My first impression was wow this little thing looks cool. After unpacking things, I followed the insert that says Start Here. The battery is small and is contoured to look like the back flip part of the laptop and installs easily. It did add a bit of weight to the back but its still lighter than other laptops.I started the laptop up and made it thru most of the Windows 7 configurations but at the end of the settings could not get online. I didn't see anything telling me to press the F12 button to turn on the wireless and Bluetooth. There's a little light that turned from orange to a bluish white showing the wireless was now running.
Once I got the wireless thing fixed, I was able to update and download additional thing I like on my computers. The machine seems to run fairly fast for such a small PC. Certain things like installing MS Office made the internal fans rev up like a jet engine and blow out hot air. There's supposed to be a setting that you can let the pc know if its on a desk or lap to help control the heat and hot fan but I've been unsuccessful in finding this.
The laptop has a lot of mini led lights on the top and sides letting you know what's on or the status like power, HD, wireless, sound on/off, battery charging/complete. The main power button on the top left corner is actually very bright and lights up your room in the dark.
One of the 3 USB plugs is near the very front left side which can be a bit of a pain because if its on your lap gets in the way. The others are on the right in the middle which I found in a better spot that didn't interfere with things. There's an HDMI, and a media card slot which are a nice addition to this small laptop.
The keyboard is on the small side but not terribly small. I did find myself hitting the wrong keys because I feel that the spaces between the keys is a little too much and they could have made the actual keys a little bigger. They are flat keys just like the Apple keyboards. I see a trend in most laptops these days using this style.
The track pad gave me some issues as I felt the click buttons didn't work very well. It was easier to just double tap to select/click rather than the buttons.
The 11.6 inch display is bright and was pretty clear and was better than I expected. I don't think this is meant to work on all day only because you strain your eyes after a while.
One of my dislikes and the reason I gave it 4 stars is that the AC plug is a little short. The AC pack gets pretty hot so be careful where you place it.
There is tons of bloatware on the machine. There are two book readers, games and the usual HP program for every little thing possible. I've deleted most of them right off the bat. I really wish that when setting things up you get the option to install or not install the programs.
My conclusion is yes this is a small pc with no cd drive but it is fairly powerful and does a great job at handling strong programs and games. I do think its a little pricey for its size but it does have a big HD and lots of ram as well as a few other features you won't find on similar laptops this size.
Pros:
Size
Clear screen
320gb HD
3gb Ram
Portability
Features (Bluetooth, media reader, HDMI, 3 USB etc.)
Cons:
No disc drive
Track pad buttons
Can get warm at times
AC plug not long enough
One USB plug too close to front of pc
Price
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