HP Pavilion DM3-1040US 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)
- 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 Processor (2 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
- 4 GB DDR3 RAM (2 Dimm), Max supported 8 GB
- 320GB (7200RPM) SATA Hard Drive
- 13.3-Inch Diagonal High-Classification HP LED BrightView Widescreen Show (1366 x 768)
- Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (shared) with up to 1.6 GB whole available graphics reminiscence
- Real Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, *Up to 10 Hours of Battery Life
For those who want full PC performance optimized for mobility, the HP Pavilion dm3 Entertainment series delivers in a surprisingly affordable, minimalist design. Its top and palm rest covers are made of brushed aluminum in Modern Argento gray, while its bottom casing is a magnesium alloy. The metal casing helps ensure most durability at minimal weight. The clean design is accentuated by an iconic keyboard. Powered by the latest ultra-low-voltage processor and mobile graphics technologies, it delivers optimal mobile performance to support your on-the-go lifestyle. Get up to 10 hours of life for extended use with the standard battery. Break free with the performance you need in a design you’ll like (without the designer price tag). Set yourself apart with an ultra-thin design in colorized brushed aluminum. Get greater durability with lightweight aluminum-magnesium casing. Experience full-screen views of HD TV and movies with the 16:9 13.3-Inch diagonal show. Delight in your photos and videos on HD TVs with the HDMI port (cable sold separately). Chat face to face with the HP Webcam and add fun special effects. Relax with superfluous protection from file loss due to drops with HP ProtectSmart. Delight in simple access to your favorite entertainment with HP MediaSmart.
Rating: 
(out of 27 reviews)
hp notebook review
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At $649 after rebate I reflect this laptop hits a real sweet spot in the 13″ market! I’ve had it for a week now and am really enjoying it. I also bought a Samsung slim DVD writer since this mahcine doesn’t include an optical drive.
Pros:
- Runs very cool with the Intel processor – have never had the fan kick on
- No problem streaming video, and has an HDMI for for your HDTV
- Best looking notebook for the price
- Very quick and silent hdd
- I have to admit I really am enjoying Windows 7 – I skipped the whole Outlook thing
- The back lit LED screen is gorgeous
- With 4GB RAM the system multi-taks very well
- Battery Life – I get 5 to 6 hrs with my custom settings, cross country trips on a plane are now a reality
- The keyboard is fantastic to type on, although the use of a fn key to use f1-f12 isn’t for me
Cons:
- Reasonably a bit of crapware and bloatware to get rid of
- The track pad leaves something to be desired – buggy in that it sometimes locks up from resume or comes back as a magnifying glass. You can find out how to fix this in the forurms…
- The mouse buttons on the track pad are too small and require too much pressure to click.
I used to travel with a back breaking 15.4 Dell M65, this will be a joy to travel with, and I will use it more at home because of how gorgeous the screen is, and it is completely silent. In my option you can’t go incorrect here.HP Pavilion DM3-1040US 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop – Up to 10 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but dunking a product on Amazon usually gets you more “No” votes. That said, I am compelled to write this review as I judge that HP did an “evil thing” when they rolled out this product.
Before I start bitching, here are the GOOD:
***Killer looks (five stars are not enough)
***Fantastic screen (never feels like I am looking at a 13.3″ screen)
***one of the best keyboards I had used in a long time
***Powerful processor with bounty of RAM (doesn’t struggle even when I keep 10 applications simultaneously open)
***Silent
***Four USB’s and an HDMI out (on such a small body)
***Solid build.
Then there are the BAD:
***Buggy touch pad. Some quick fix solutions are being discussed on the forums. The issue seem to be a software bug. If so, it’s just a matter of time before HP would fix it (I wonder why HP hadn’t done it already; I’ll grit my teeth and wait).
***Mirror surface touchpad is “sticky” (I’m not a “touch pad” guy anyhow).
***A laptop bag supplied by HP screams “aesthetic murder” (I’ll budget may be another $100 for a new bag)
***Having to hold function key to access F2 is real pain when working on spreadsheet (but I reflect I’ll get used to it; I’m already warming up to by FN+Arrow to access HOME and END)
Here is the unforgivable UGLY:
***The battery life is typically 4 hours and not the advertised 10 hours (no gaming or video; only standard office work with WiFi on)!!!
This is absolutely unforgivable because
***This is not a software bug and won’t get fixed in the prospect
***The difference between the claimed battery life and actual one is so large that it can’t be clarified away with fine prints (I can swallow if I get 80% of advertised battery life; not when I get only 40%)
***When the Asian manufacturers (Acer, ASUS and now Sony) claim 10hr, user really get 10hr or more.
I reflect HP is having distress catching up with the “low battery consumption” technologies. Instead of working their butt off, HP took a small cut and made a fake “10hr battery” claim. After all, the world is full of suckers like “yours truly”. In my part of the world, such practice is called “cheating”. If you are from Google Land, you may want to call it “doing Evil”.
I bought this laptop because I was tired of carrying my earlier “kitchen sink of a machine” (HP dv9000; perfectly designed). I had this fancy notion that I would carry the notebook to the office, sans the wires, bag and baggage (I’ve seen my friends do this with Acer and Asus). That’s never going to happen till I upgrade some two years down the line.
When I am in the market the next time around, I should remember not to take HP on its face value.
I know most of the people taking this unit out of the box have a certain level of expectation, but not all computers have up to date drivers and bios updates installed from the factory. Most if not all of the issues addressed within the reviews for this product are non existent in a fully updated unit with all the current offerings from HPs site. My unit expected early 2010 has the very first bios while the update offered is 12 revisions later.
I use this machine as an always on solution that uses low power to keep the power bill down. I use it as a media center, magicjack always on phone system ( throughout my household) and for file transfers. When im bone idle I take it to bed to surf before sleep.
Pros
- Appearance. Lid and palm rest is brushed aluminum and looks top notch. I have not seen a laptop that looks this excellent, friends and family LOVE the look of the computer.
-Noise. Near silent. I read reviews with people complaining about the fan. Its nearly undetectable and I consider it a real plus. I got this just for this reason to replace a HTPC that was too loud for my bedroom. Im thrilled with the cooling so far with the majority of the heat being in the thinnest sections of the palmrest area. Heat exhaust is out the back right and does not blow on you in any way.
- Weight. Doesnt equate to most full size laptops. This thing can be played with in hand in bed more like a netbook. Freedom of treatment is closer to a netbook
-Performance. While lacking dedicated video I can be a witness to what this small powerhouse can do. Play video files up to 14gb+ mkv format BlueRay files (Star Trek 1008p) with perfect playback. The ONLY place this unit is lacking is HD flash video playback (Hulu HD) Still works fine in non full screen or standard definitions. 720p works but above that starts to see framerate loss that affects experience. This will improve with flash updates and prospect drivers. This unit will likely never be flawless with 1080 streaming. All 720 streaming seems to be fluid enough to be comfortable. This computer can multitask but its obviously for running one primary attention at a time. Background processes and insignificant apps aside, this isnt a computer for surveillance streaming videos and doing processor intensive apps. Its just a small light on CPU to really hammer it. If your not clicking like a madman you will have no issues.
-Size. You cant find a full function laptop in a size this small. This is small and light and simple to carry yet it has the power to do full size laptop tasks. Its very thin, impressively so
-Hardware/Software built-in for price. DDR3 Ram, 7200rpm HDD, Windows 7 Premium. This is the smallest computer I may possibly find that runs a full real version of Windows 7. Win7 basic in netbooks was not an option for me.
-Stereo Microphone. The microphone array in the lid of this unit is the best ive ever heard. Ive interacted with hundreds of computers and laptops and this is as excellent as they get. PERFECT clarity
-Keyboard. Middle of the road here. Not the best but not terrible. Im typing honestly clean with it so no complaints so far. VERY insignificant flex.
-Soundbar. Altec lansing soundbar built into the lower front. Sounds slightly above average and as long as your expectations arent too high on bass its very excellent. Some comparable computers sound like an AM radio. This is up there with full size premium notebooks.
-Price. This computer is much lower cost than anything comparable in end or function.
Cons
-TouchPad. The touchpad is a chrome charming end which makes your finger nearly stick to it as your moving it around. Buttons are much too hard to press and click. Fingerprints are a constant on the touchpad area. The multi-touch features are a gimmick at best and should be disabled. I have to agree that this is one of the worst touchpads ive ever come across. It seems to be standard for netbooks and small laptops. This should improve with time. Noones pleased with the touchpads in most if not all the 10-13″ laptops I researched before buying. There is a bright white indicator for the touchpad that is an outrage. It reflects back onto the screen causing an artifact in what your trying to watch. Fixable but unexcusable. Red is off and bright white is on. Are you kidding me?
-Screen. The Screen on this is like most smaller netbooks. Very poor viewing angle. When you hit the sweet spot it looks excellent. Its not anything spectacular and all the manufacturers have all kinds of names and distinctions for their screens all of which mean nothing. Most leave something to be desired. This is no mac book pro screen. FAR from it.
-Battery Life. The advertised battery life is an absolute lie. To get anywhere in the realm of what they are claiming it would have to be in sleep mode untouched and even then its a reach. Under normal treatment, video playback, web surfing etc, the battery life is just like a full frame laptop. 2 – 2.5 hours tops.
-Plastic Trim. While the unit looks stellar theres a fake crome plastic trim that has poor fitting corner joints and takes away from the whole build quality (Insignificant)
Conclusion: I would buy this laptop again and would recommend it to a friend. Its only real drawback, the touchpad, is a mute issue for those of us that frequent a mouse. The touchpad is not enough of a drawback to not buy this fantastic computer. I did not test the webcam.
Overall, this is a pretty nice laptop.. but there are a few glaring caveats. I’ll try to make this as small as possible.
Pros:
- Some excellent design attributes. From the aluminum lid/magnesium chassis (this is unique to the dm3, as in other laptops in this category are not constructed of the magnesium chassis). Keyboard is among the best i’ve ever used.
- Fantastic battery life (i can get 7-8 hours with screen brightness turned down.
- Excellent webcam.
- Screen is decent. Can’t complain about the brightness, and viewing angles are ok.
Cons:
- As some have noted, the touchpad when waking up from sleep/hibernation gets screwy. You can fix this issue with a bios flash (look for it on HP’s website).
- Truncated up and down keys.
- I *judge* the chassis is larger than the category average. It also weighs about .7 lbs more than the acer 3810, and .5 lbs more than the asus ul30a.
- Touchpad takes a while getting used to. If you press too hard, your fingers will smudge against the mirror end. To correctly use it, try let your fingers “hover” above the surface.. lightly touching it.
Overall, I reflect the DM3 is a worthy hold.. if you can deal with the laptop’s imperfections. Out of the Asus UL30A, Acer Timeline 3810, Lenovo U350, and Toshiba T135 (other laptops in the DM3′s category), I would rank the HP DM3 as a close 3rd to the Acer Timeline 3810.
I bought a DM3 series computer in early December 2009. At first I was amazed at how fantastic the system was. Then I found that it would freeze up every time I tried to close the lid and reopen it. This is pretty fundamental for a laptop, so I figured I had loaded something that was having a problem. After talking with HP tech support, but, I found out this is a known problem with the unit and that their solution was to shut the unit down every time you want to close it. Unbelieveable that they would ship it with this kind of known error!!
DO NOT BUY THIS COMPUTER!!
Once they finally acknowledge this as a problem and they work on fixing it, it will be a fantastic system. For now, but, don’t buy it unless you are willing to reset it every time you want to close it.