I just got this notebook to send off to college with my daughter. I've been in the computer business for over 35 years, and this is one of the best PC notebooks I've ever had (I'd give it 5 stars, but it is not a Mac Book my daughter prefers Windows).
But I have owned a bunch of PC notebooks over the years, including several other HPs, and this is the best PC notebook I've ever owned a really excellent mix of size, performance, and style. Aside from its technical specs, it really is attractive for a notebook way to go HP design team!
My daughter is very fussy about keyboards and trackpads, and to win her approval is a huge endorsement. I've been watching the ads for PC notebooks knowing college starts this fall, and this HP dm4 really caught my eye. I'd been considering the 8 hour ASUS machines, but this 6 hour HP was enough better in other specs to seal the deal. For a PC, the claimed 6+ hours (over 4 in reality) is way better than almost any other PC notebook (although Mac Books are much better).
Compared to most other PC notebooks, this one wins because: very light (other reviews say it is one of the very lightest 14" notebooks), fast (Intel i5 mobile, not just an i3), 4Gigs RAM, 500Gig hard drive (and 7200rpm, not 5400!), fingerprint scanner (and it really works well and seamlessly encourages good security), bluetooth, WiFi N, HDMI + VGA, eSATA, Windows 7 64-bit, great battery life, great size and weight. Just right mix. (Just a note it uses shared graphics, just fine for anyone except hard core gamers probably improves battery life.)
SUMMARY: A great balance of price, performance, and style. Should easily last four years of college.
PROS: Size, weight, style, CPU performance, fingerprint scanner, memory
CONS: screen size (beautiful LED display, but at 768 pixels high, a bit low wish it were 900), really loaded with crapware (but that is typical of almost any PC notebook today, especially HP check out pc decrapifier)
I am a power PC user, having built many desktop and server machines, and used numerous portables and laptops, over the past thirty years. After having done extensive research for an i5 based laptop, I am convinced that this relatively new HP offering is one of the best computer purchases that I have ever made.
Notable Pros:
Widescreen 14" LED display is quite bright and crisp at 1366x768 optimal resolution. Yes, it is glossy and reflects a lot of light. It is not what I would want for doing extensive Photoshop processing but I have my desktop display for that. This display is fine for a lightweight laptop and is a pleasure to view and use. HP is wise to push the 14" LED as an alternative to the widescreen 15.6" and 17" LCDs that seem to be most prevalent these days. It ultimately allows for significantly easier handling, lighter weight and less power consumption. I personally believe that this form factor is going to become much more popular in the coming months.
Fast 500GB 7200 rpm hard disk, 4GB DDR3 memory (two slots, maximum of 8GB allowed), and i5-430M processor, optimized for laptop use, all provide for a very satisfactory Windows 7 user experience. The machine "feels" quite snappy. And I am coming from a Thinkpad T61 Core 2 Duo T7100 running Windows 7 that is not exactly a slouch.
Battery life (realistic) is about 5 hours. Yes, you can go with an i7 and dedicated graphics and a huge 17" display but you will pay for it with greatly diminished battery life (maybe 2-3 hours at most). I believe that HP has found a nice power sweetspot with respect to this hardware combination.
Plenty of ports, including 3 USB, 1 eSata, 1 VGA, 1 HDMI as well as 5-1 multicard reader and an integrated fingerprint reader that actually works pretty well.
Notable Cons:
The HP Trackpad. I found it to be a real pain to use for any extensive work involving a lot of highlighting and scrolling. It seems at times to have a mind of its own. I am not sure whether the issue is the hardware or the Windows 7 driver, but in any case, you will want an alternative. In my case, I went with the Microsoft Mobile Mouse. It is small, unobtrusive, and can be used on almost any surface. It does not require line of sight to the USB receiver. Some others might not find this acceptable, but it works for me. Let me put it this way. If you must have a trackpad to do a lot of highlighting and scrolling, this is not the machine for you. I personally can put up with the flaw with my "fix" because I genuinely like almost everything else about the machine.
HP crapware. It is, well, crap. Mostly veiled advertisements and software trials that actually add very little for most users. Furthermore, it is quite extensive and serves to slow down the boot time and the overall responsiveness of the machine. I got rid of it, but only after 90 minutes of painstaking uninstalling of individual programs. HP does a real disservice to a large subset of its customers by loading this software and not providing an easier way of minimizing or eliminating it.
But all in all, I think this laptop is a winner. It has a critical flaw in the trackpad, but for most users it is easily surmounted. There is good competition out there. The Asus U30 and Samsung R580 are fine machines and might even have slightly better price points depending on which day it is. But I do not think they are superior to the HP overall. I also considered HP's very good reputation and ubiquity in the laptop market as well as the likely availability of accessories down the line. Most importantly this particular HP represents a fine piece of engineering at a nice price point. I expect it will be a real winner for them.
Buy HP Pavilion dm4-1060us 14.1-Inch Laptop Now
Pros: This is an excellent laptop! It is very classy looking and well built. I'm not sure if the people that say the touchpad is awful are people that are just not used to this kind of touchpad or maybe they have received a bad unit but it is by far the best click pad out of anyone out there and has a satisfying right and left click. It is obviously not as simple to use as a regular touchpad, but once you get the idea of how to use it, it works great. Also, they just released a new firmware/software update for the touchpad that might be what is helping out. Overall, the laptop is actually lighter than I thought it would be. The 14" screen is an absolute perfect size. I was all about 13.3" screens before this, but the extra .7" helps out in screen real estate as well as making enough room for the case to hold a full DVD multi drive w/o adding a ton of bulk. Nice touches such as polished metal edges to the keyboard and touchpad surround. The dedicated multimedia keys are also convenient.
Cons: None really. While a regular touchpad might be easier to use for some, I actually prefer it, as for me it works flawlessly.
Other Thoughts: The metal construction is very nice with etched patterns that are actually not as noticeable or bad looking like I though they might be. I have heard comments that say that they think the laptop is pink. I can thankfully say that it is not pink, it is a bronze metal color that shows up in dim light, unless you think bronze is pink. In bright light the color is more of a silver color. It is also sufficiently thin with tapered edges that actually make it seem even thinner than it is. The keyboard is also very comfortable to use. The best thing about it is that the battery is fully enclosed in the case and does not stick out at all! Batteries that protrude out had been a common design and I am very happy that with this laptop the battery is flush with the bottom. I spent a long time looking for a laptop for myself and am absolutely happy with my decision to go with this one. I recommend that anyone looking for a great looking laptop with a ton of power to definitely check this one out!
Read Best Reviews of HP Pavilion dm4-1060us 14.1-Inch Laptop Here
**Sorry, the beginning of this is more like an HP vs Macbook comparison, skip down for the review of the actual product!**
I've owned this laptop for a little more than a week now and I thought it was my turn to write a review on it since the reviews really sold me on getting it. But first let me tell you that I was really trying to decide between this laptop, a Samsung R580, and a Macbook.
The Samsung was out of the question as soon as I started to do my homework: it had Blu-Ray and nice, little features but apparently its battery life sucked something awful. So it was up to the Macbook (any, really) and this HP. I started to do comparisons and this HP just wins on paper. Compared to the cheapest Macbook this computer has twice the hard drive space, twice the ram, a little bigger screen (13" vs 14"), an HDMI port (which was actually a huge factor for me personally), Intel's Core i5 instead of Core Two Duo, and I think it looks nicer than the white Macbook. I do concede that the Macbook has an Intel HD graphics card along with an ATI graphics card which most likely comes in handy when working on Photoshop or video editing, but I've done that so far and the Intel HD alone has not disappointed me. Though, those back-lit keys and big track pad do look great.
So what it came down to was battery life. HP's advertised 6.5 hours is a huge joke so I figured I'd cut that down in half to get actual battery life and it rings true; Mac's advertised 10 hours did appeal to me since I commute to my university but the ends did not justify the means for me. I got this laptop on sale at Office Depot for $780 after taxes and a $50 mail-in rebate (which basically just reimburses me the taxes) and am getting more bang for my buck then I would be getting with the Macbook. And if I were to look at a Macbook that was comparable to this HP, hardware-wise, I would have spent an extra $1,000! That's just not in my budget especially as a poor college student. People have continued to tell me that "Macs are great, they don't get viruses, they're so simple, they just work..." but I've used Windows all my life and I've never had a virus problem--if you're relatively intelligent this shouldn't be a problem which it isn't for me, Windows 7 is beautiful and awesome, and I don't think it's "too hard" to use. And as someone who always gets buyer's remorse, and did so after purchasing this laptop thinking maybe I should have splurged for a Macbook, I am more than satisfied with this computer. It's fantastic! But on to the review of the actual product...
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When I was getting this product, I thought I was buying its brother, the HP dm4-1065dx, when I got home I realized it was this model and panicked... I didn't understand, I knew the specs and reviewed them before the purchase at the store--what happened!? Then I compared the specs online. Want to know the difference? This model has Bluetooth, the other doesn't, and for less money. I don't know why they're two different models but they are.
I have nothing bad to say about this computer at least practically! I do have this weird OCD thing where I think it looks purple under some light, some people agree with me, some people just think I'm obsessive... which I am. The design is beautiful, the keyboard is amazing, the track pad is also just great. I know some people had issues with the track pad but they must have released some updates because absolutely no complaints here. I even love the fingerprint reader, which has come in handy to log into the computer quickly!
The screen looks *beautiful*, some think the resolution might be too small at 720p but come on, this thing is beautiful. I stated earlier that HDMI ports are important to me, which they are. Connecting this to my LG 1080p HDTV has been a great experience especially using Boxee or watching HD YouTube videos... it's just eye-popping(ly) fantastic. I'm in love.
The Core i5 processor is handy too. I had a 3 year old AMD processor before this and wow, everything is so snappy from opening applications and web browsers, to just downloading music, syncing MP3 players, streaming video is a breeze.
The look of the computer is great, too. I already stated my purple vice, but besides that the etched airbrushed metal looks good and gives it a certain edge some college students might want. I *love* the keyboard, it's fantastic, especially since I went from a 15.6" screen laptop to a 14" one, I thought this would be too small but it's perfect. And at 4.4lbs, battery included, commuting to and from school (on the bus) has been hassle-free, provided you get the right backpack (I recommend Belkin's Core Laptop Backpack).
I would say that booting time really serves to its detriment. Not after the login screen, if you get rid of the software it comes with this should be a breeze, but staring at that Windows logo for so long can get a kid impatient. Battery life isn't as advertised but it's not low, either. I couldn't tell you exactly how long it lasts because I don't have an accurate description of it using BatteryBar (it fluctuates times, I need to use it more) but it's definitely long enough for me. Today, I turned it on around 7:30am put it in sleep from 7:50-9:10am, then used it from 9:10-10:30am but not as intense after 10, then sleep again, then turned it on and used it from about 4-6:30pm. I know that's kind of confusing but by 6:30 I was around 10% battery and the thing shuts off at 6%, I don't know why. That's typical use for me as someone who commutes and such, I bring my charger but never really need it. All on dimmest screen setting and power saver mode with WiFi and surfing the Internet.
Okay, this is becoming a novel, so I'll just say: I'm glad I purchased this computer and am in love with all it can do.
PROS: Screen, design, keyboard, track pad, swiftness, how cool it runs especially on power saver mode, the webcam is actually fantastic as far as webcams go
CONS: Battery life isn't as advertised but it's still great, the purple thing, boot up time is horrendous, I can't think of more.
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I love this laptop! Not only is it chic and slender, it is durable and easily packed for travel. Many users need a little time to get used to the touchpad, but the adjustment period is very short.
This light, slender laptop has a 14" screen which is a very reasonable size. I like the metal frame surrounding the keypad and touchpad as that enhances their appearance. The battery is tucked away inside so it is not readily visible. Cosmetics notwithstanding, this is still an excellent computer and it has multimedia keys as an added good feature.
If you need a good bag to transport this computer, I recommend Caselogic ZLC-116 Professional 16-Inch Laptop Case (Black) as this is a very durable bag that is neither cumbersome nor heavy. You can also pack 2 laptops in it!
In short, I love this computer. It requires a smooth, gentle touch and users can "jump onto the saddle" quite easily. The edges are slightly rounded.
If you are looking for a high quality laptop, then you seriously want to consider this one.
