HP Pavilion DM1 Pro Reviews

Aside from the ropey touchpad, the HP Pavilion dm1-3100sa is a great ultra-portable laptop. At £349, it offers superb value for money, if you don't need bags of power for resource-hungry tasks such as video editing. The screen is particularly impressive, making it perfect for life on the move. If you need a portable pal for keeping you entertained while travelling, the HP Pavilion DM1-3100sa is a fantastic option.

It may look like a very smart netbook, but the dm1 is twice as fast and has good speakers; however its dim screen lets it down, and the atrocious touchpad means it misses out on an award.

HP's Pavilion dm1 is a netbook that delivers on the performance front, though given its size, we're hesitant to call it that. Running on the AMD Brazos platform, this netbook is a pretty decent example of what you can expect from such devices now and in the future. Back in the days of the first netbook, these devices were underpowered and lacked graphical capabilities, even to the extent of being unable to play Adobe Flash videos. The overall design of the HP dm1 borrows much from the Envy line. Its sleek, thin profile works in its favor of this slightly larger than normal netbook. That's a good thing too, because a larger screen does make for easier reading, and a bigger keyboard means more comfort for your fingers. Having said that, the dm1 isn't perfect.

The Pavilion dm1-3180eg scores highly compared to many of its netbook rivals thanks to its more advanced graphics performance. However, you should remember that this does not make an ultra-mobile multimedia or gaming machine out of a netbook, not by a long way. Modern graphics-intensive games will run on their lowest settings, if at all. But netbooks simply weren’t developed with this purpose in mind. The graphics unit is more likely to be useful for encoding HD videos, for example.

The bottom line: The first laptop to offer AMD's power-efficient Fusion platform delivers on much of its promise, combining great battery life, decent performance, and basic graphics for less than $500.

This Pavilion looks like a netbook, but it packs AMD’s Fusion technology inside. It's an excellent, light choice for both productivity and media playback on the road.

Now that the HP Pavilion dm1 has arrived, the budget notebook space has become a lot more competitive. With AMD's new Fusion processor, HP has created a laptop that, for $479, provides a better balance of performance and endurance than the Nvidia Ion-powered Asus Eee PC 1215N. It also gives you more graphics oomph than Intel ULV notebooks and earlier AMD budget ultraportables. While you'll squeeze out a few more frames in some games on Ion, the more powerful dual-core AMD processor in the dm1 lets you accomplish more than an Atom chip ever could. Not only that, but you get 6.5 hours of battery life in a very stylish package.

The HP Pavilion dm1 outperforms any other netbook we've reviewed. It is slim, stylish, and easy to carry around - given its 12in form factor. It does have a clunky touchpad, though - so try it out before buying. We recommend the Pavilion dm1 to anyone who wants a netbook - only with greater performance levels. It offers good battery life and is a good pick for people interested in a thin, ultraportable laptop - without spending big bucks.

The HP Pavilion DM1 fares decently in the 11.6-inch notebook space. Stand out features include fantastic audio (thanks to Altec Lansing), low fan noise, solid no flex keyboard and a great microphone. Battery life is decent, for the size: 4.5 hours with it’s 6-cell battery.