Hewlett Packard Pavilion DM1Z Fusion Ultraportable Review

1. Introduction2. Hewlett Packard Pavilion DM1Z (1)3. Hewlett Packard Pavilion DM1Z (2)4. Software Installation, Hardware Overview and Testing Methodology5. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra6. Synthetic: PCMark Vantage7. Synthetic: Aida 648. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit9. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage10. Synthetic: Hard Drive performance11. Real World: BluRay Performance with Cyberlink Power DVD 1012. Real World: Flash HD Performance13. Real World: Media Encoding with Cyberlink Media Espresso14. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark V2.015. Gaming: Left4Dead 216. Technical: Boot up and Wake from Hibernation17. Technical: Acoustics Performance18. Technical: Thermal Dynamics19. Technical: Battery Life20. Technical: Screen Quality21. Technical: Power Consumption22. Upgrading with a Solid State Drive23. Closing Thoughts24. View All Pages

AMD released Fusion in January and KitGuru has reviewed many motherboards and systems from partners … all to this point within a desktop environment. Today we are analysing the new Hewlett Packard Pavilion DM1z, our first look at AMD's Fusion technology in the mobile space.

Intel have been ruling the mobile market for quite some time now, the low powered ATOM and ultra low voltage processors have been adopted by many system makers thanks to the competitive pricing and relatively good power drain. It is time for AMD to stand up and start fighting back.

The Hewlett Packard DM1Z on paper looks mighty impressive. It is supplied with the formidable 1.6Ghz AMD E-350 processor, a 320GB 7,200 rpm Hard drive, 4GB of DDR3 memory and a tasty 11.6 inch LED screen. WiFi and Bluetooth also make the grade.

Processor	AMD E-350 1.6GHz
Memory	4GB DDR3-1333 (2 DIMMs)
Chipset	AMD Hudson FCH
Graphics	AMD Radeon HD 6310
Display	11.6″ TFT with 1366×768 resolution and LED backlight
Storage	Western Digital Scorpio 320GB 2.5″ 7,200 RPM hard drive
Audio	Stereo HD audio via IDT codec
Ports	3 USB 2.0 1 HDMI 1 VGA 1 RJ45 10/100 Ethernet via Realtek controller 1 analog headphone output 1 analog microphone input
Expansion slots	1 MMC/SDHC
Communications	802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi via Ralink RT5390 controller Bluetooth 3.0 via Ralink Motorola BC8 controller
Input devices	Chiclet keyboard Synaptics capacitive touchpad Internal microphone
Camera	0.3-megapixel webcam
Dimensions	11.4″ x 8.4″ x 0.8-1.2″ (290 x 214 x 20-30 mm)
Weight	3.52 lbs (1.6 kg)
Battery	6-cell Li-ion 4770 mAh, 55 Wh

Our Hewlett Packard Pavilion DM1Z laptop arrived in a plain brown box.

The bundle includes literature on the product, a full colour quick start guide and a power adapter.

When I first saw the DM1Z I felt it had an ‘almost Apple' style appearance, which is meant as a compliment. The lid has an embossed style pattern which is subtle, yet adds a layer of depth to the design. The HP logo is visible in the corner.

The rear of the machine is covered with a deep black fascia which yet again reminded me of unboxing an Apple laptop. The DM1Z is an extremely pretty design and the surfaces don't act a a dust or fingerprint magnet. Hewlett Packard have said that the design intentionally avoided glossy surfaces, even on the lid.

There are a total of 3 USB 2.0 ports on either side, two on the right and one on the left. There is also a card reader, HDMI port, VGA out and headphone and microphone port. This is a fairly loaded configuration for an ultraportable machine and much better than many we have looked at in the past. The large vent on the left hand side is a cooling vent, which forces hot air out sideways.

The laptop ships with a protective felt cover between the keyboard and screen to help prevent any markings during shipping.

The screen is an 11.6 inch 1366×768 TN LED panel. It has a very high pixel density and the resolution is perfectly matched to the real estate available. This really is a huge step up from the ‘average' ultraportable machine on the market, which is normally limited to 1024×768.

The power key resides to the left of the chassis, right under the screen, a good position for easy access.

The DM1Z is supplied with a Chiclet keyboard which is almost full sized and extremely comfortable to use. I often have problems with keyboards on smaller laptop designs, but this one has been well thought out. The keyboard is 96% the size of the overall width at 275mm.

There is no keyboard flex, the keys are very firm indeed and offer tactile feedback response. Typing is a joy on this machine and I rated at my maximum 120 words per minute with online tests. I am normally limited to this speed on full sized boards such as the DAS keyboard, which is my desktop favourite.

The row of function keys along the top of the keyboard also hints at ‘borrowing' an idea from Apple. You don't have to press the FN key to access screen brightness or volume for instance. Simply pressing the keys activates the function, and this to me is a huge bonus point – I really do hate fumbling for the fn key. Being an Apple Macintosh laptop user, I always wondered why more PC makers didn't opt for the ‘single key' button press. F12 for instance toggles Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, with a faded in alert appearing on screen to notify the user. Very nice indeed.

The images above are deliberately taken in poor light conditions to highlight the lovely white lighting subtlety positioned in various parts of the chassis. Hard drive and power lights are indicated above, but we also like the fact that when various functionality is disabled, then the white lights change to ‘orange'. Not something you expect on a modestly priced machine such as this.

A large speaker runs along the side of the chassis. It is much better than those included on any other netbook we have tested in the last year, but it won't be replacing a dedicated sound system or quality headphones. Still it is quite surprising as it can produce decent volume without too much distortion.

The touchpad is a Synaptics model with internal rocker switch which is again, very close to those you find on Apple MacBooks. The lower section, which is clearly marked, indicates the left and right button areas. The whole area supports tracking however so you can swipe over this area for pointer movement. Another great little feature.

In the top left there is a little dot. If this is pressed it disables the touchpad while turning the dot an orange colour. This is a great option for when you are in ‘full typing' mode and don't want any erroneous tracking accidents. When I used a Sony Bluetooth mouse with this machine I disabled the touchpad during normal use. There is full support for multi touch features, such as three finger swiping and two finger scrolling. It is a great touchpad, but when given the option I always immediately avoid using one.

By this stage I was starting to get a really good feeling about this machine, we often expect (and accept) compromises with ultra portable machines. So far the DM1Z is indicating that the designers really did spend time with every single function and setting.

The battery is removed by pushing a single lever on the underside of the machine.

The battery is a 10.8V model rated at 4770mAh. With the low power demand of the Fusion platform we are hoping for some excellent battery life results later in the review.

When the battery is removed, there is access to a SIM card slot for 3G connectivity. The rear cover can also be removed once the battery has been taken out. Hewlett Packard have cleverly designed the rear plate to be removed without the need for a screwdriver. Simply tug on several plastic retainer clips and the whole rear section can be removed.

The internal layout is very neat, with the Hynix memory (2x2gb) protected under a paper cover. The hard drive resides at the opposite side of the chassis to the cooling fan.

The system is limited to 3.8 in the Windows Experience Index – due to the processor. This is pretty much what we expected from our previous E350 Fusion reviews.

The system unfortunately has a lot of software pre-installed, many of which are HP branded media titles. They might be useful for the target audience, but a quick system clearout would be our first port of call. Nortons Internet Security Suite and a trial version of Microsoft Office 2010 were also installed.

Some of the software will appeal to a wide audience, such as the Stardock ‘Fences' package. This is a software suite which Hewlett Packard have opted to install to try and help the user keep their desktop tidy. We find these suites interfere with how we work, but we can see a healthy portion of the audience finding it appealing.

A quick overview of the system, centered around the AMD Zacate E-350 dual core processor, built on 40nm architecture and running at 1.6ghz.

To test the Fusion platform today, we are using a wide selection of real world and synthetic tests, clearly labeled. If you are only interested in video quality and hardware performance we advise you to shift forward in the review to the real world and image quality sections.

We also felt it would be interesting to compare some of our findings against the Intel Atom platform, in the shape of the 1.8GHz D525 and the 1.66ghz D510 processors. We have also included results from a previous generation AMD Turion 64 X2 L510 clocked at 1.6ghz.

Supplemental Hardware:
Solid State Drive: ADATA S599 256GB
Optical: Asus USB 2.0 BluRay Drive
Monitors: LaCie 730 (IQ testing) and Dell U2410

Comparison processors:
Atom D525 @ 1.8ghz
Atom D510 @ 1.66 ghz
Turion X64 X2 L510 @ 1.6ghz

Software:
Aida 64
SiSoft Sandra
Cinebench R11.5 64 bit
Cyberlink Media Espresso
Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra V10
3Dmark Vantage
HQV Benchmark V 2.0
Left4Dead2

Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Keithley Integra unit
Thermal Diodes
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter
Kill A Watt Meter

All results are gained from multiple test runs to ensure any abnormalities are removed before publication.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Synthetic performance within SiSoft Sandra is excellent, and what we expect from the E350 processor.

PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.

From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.

Strong results from the Fusion mobile laptop, scoring 2404 points.

AIDA64 Extreme Edition is a streamlined Windows diagnostic and benchmarking software for home users. AIDA64 Extreme Edition provides a wide range of features to assist in overclocking, hardware error diagnosis, stress testing, and sensor monitoring. It has unique capabilities to assess the performance of the processor, system memory, and disk drives. AIDA64 is compatible with all current 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems, including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.

These scores are in line with the desktop systems we have reviewed before. Healthy results for an ultraportable laptop.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

The older L510 system we use has a dual channel memory configuration which helps the Cinema 4D rendering performance a little. The Atom D525 takes up last place in the results.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7.  This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. We are using the Entry preset.

The DM1Z is not a gaming tour de force, but with modest settings at lower resolutions, non demanding games could be played. We will take a look at Valve's Source engine later.

A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance so we used two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to rate the internal 2.5 inch hard drive.

The Western Digital Scorpio 7,200 rpm mechanical drive isn't the fastest, but to be fair under general use it seems a lot more responsive than some we have tested recently. We will revisit these tests later in the review after fitting a performance solid state drive.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Extended Bluray Disc of Avatar, one of our favourite sci-fi films in recent years.

The E350 APU is really good with this high definition test, demanding an average of 4-5 percent less overhead than the Atom D525 and D510. Its not really noticeable in real world situations, but it shows the new platform is more efficient.

These results are very impressive, with CPU demand moving from a minimum of 7 percent to a maximum of 27 percent.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

The Hewlett Packard DM1Z is easily capable of handling High Definition Flash content with plenty of spare CPU cycles left over for multitasking.

CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.

Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.

New and Improved Features

• Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
• Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
• Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
• Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
• Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
• Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.

For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are focusing on the CPU efficiency with this test.

The DM1z performs on a par with the desktop systems we have reviewed over the last couple of months, with a final score of 1 hour and 11 minutes, around 5 minutes faster than the last generation Turion X64 X2 and around 7 minutes faster than the Atom D525.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evaluate motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on BluRay. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content, so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here.

	Hewlett Packard DM1Z
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	3
Bridge Traffic	3
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	3
Roller Coaster	3
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	2
Ferris Wheel	3
Skin Tones	7
Total	179

This Hewlett Packard DM1Z delivers high quality video that’s a measurable 60% better than the scores we got with Intel’s HD video engine when we tested it, back in June last year.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game. It is the sequel to Valve Corporation’s award-winning Left 4 Dead.

Like the original, Left 4 Dead 2 is set during the aftermath of an apocalyptic pandemic, and focuses on four survivors fighting against hordes of the infected. The survivors must fight their way through levels, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints, with the goal of reaching a rescue vehicle at the campaign’s finale. The gameplay is procedurally altered by an artificial intelligence engine dubbed the “Director” that monitors the players’ performance and adjust the scenario to provide a dynamic challenge. Several new features have been introduced: new types of infected, melee weapons, and a story-arc that connects the game’s five campaigns together.

We are tesing at 720p with settings on high. 2AA is enabled.

The game runs well at this high definition resolution, indicating that the DM1Z can be used as a casual gaming machine at modest settings.

For the tests on this page we are measuring the boot up time and the wake from hibernation time. Startup is measured from the moment we hit the power button until the Windows 7 system is responsive to commands. Wake up test is measured from hitting the power button to being able to get access to the login screen.

A time of 65 seconds is rather poor, but there is a tremendous amount of bloatware installed on the machine out of the box. By removing much of the additional software we were able to reduce this time by around 10 seconds.

Again, this feels rather sluggish. Later we will retry these tests with a high performance Solid State drive installed.

We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the chassis and 4 foot from the ground with our Extech digital sound level meter to mirror a real world situation.

KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet take off/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum

This machine is barely audible, even when loaded.

We experimented with HP's CoolSense utility and set it to the quiet profile. Temperatures rose by 2c overall, but the fan couldn't be heard, which is impressive if you are particularly sensitive to noise.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 23c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. Load measurements were acquired by running Furmark and Cinebench together. We included results from a diode which we placed beside the motherboard and the exhaust fan.

This is one cool laptop! Our diodes only registered between 29-30c across the whole rear of the chassis, after a couple of hours of general use. This is an ideal machine to be using on your lap.

A machine like this will be valued on long battery life so we will be testing the machine under several real world conditions today. As this machine is brand new, we used it for a few days, letting the battery die several times for a full recycle.

General Use

First we set the screen to just over mid way brightness and left wireless enabled – we then mirrored a mixture of general use ‘real world' conditions, such as answering email, writing documents, surfing the internet, watching some flash files and talking to colleagues on messenger.

High Definition Movies

Next we set the screen brightness to about three quarters maximum, but disabled wireless. We watched 720p High definition movie files until the machine switched off.

Miser Mode

This is a mode we have set up to maximise battery life. The screen brightness is set to the lowest setting with everything disabled, including bluetooth and wireless. It is not a really practical setting to be using, but we thought it would be interesting to include. sleep mode is disabled so the machine is forced to stay active in some state.

Considering the machine is only using a modest 4770mAh battery, these results are mighty impressive, almost lasting 7 hours under ‘normal', general use conditions. Watching High definition movies with a brighter screen setting we still managed to squeeze over 5 hours of use, which is fantastic.

As we mentioned earlier, the Hewlett Packard DM1Z is equipped with an 11.6 inch 1366×768 resolution twisted nematic panel. For such a small screen, the resolution is very generous and the clarity is very good indeed across the full width of the screen.

The colour is vibrant, especially if viewed directly head on. Viewing at a slight angle vertically or horizontally means that the contrast will change, but this is common with a TN panel.

The colour calibration and gamma is fairly well calibrated at the factory although a minor tweak to the red channel removes a slight pink tinge, perhaps not noticeable to many, but it is there.

Text is sharp and clear and vertical and horizontal shifting is not noticeable. We would assume that Hewlett Packard have opted for a slightly higher quality screen than normally seen in this price range, to help ensure that the enhanced resolution doesn't prove to be a long term eye strain for a potential customer.

Black depth is relatively good for a screen in this class. Testing indicates around a 15% variance between the center area of the panel, with it trailing off to around 20% at the four corners. It is slightly more pronounced at the bottom left edge, although generally its not noticeable.

White purity is acceptable, with most of the panel registering around 10-15% across the width, peaking at 18% at the edges. This might seem high, but some of the recent laptops we have seen have reached around 30% at the edges which is easily noticeable. The whites aren't pure, but they are very realistic when watching a well recorded high definition movie. The screen is significantly better than others we have seen within this price range.

To test power consumption today we are using a Kill A Watt power meter. We loaded the system with some games and measured results at full load, when watching a movie and when idle. We measured using the performance settings.

The DM1Z demands very little power, with a maximum figure of 57 watts measured under full load. With the screen at less than half brightness and in power saving mode, the demand dropped significantly.

The Hewlett Packard DM1Z is an inexpensive machine and the inclusion of a high quality 320GB Western Digital Scorpio drive is as good as we could expect.

KitGuru editorial staff have all adapted to using Solid State Drives over the last year and we decided to perform a little surgery ourselves, by removing the Scorpio drive and refitting the machine with a 256GB ADATA S599 Solid State Drive – we reviewed this last week over here. We used Acronis Drive Image 2010 to clone the drive.

How much would it really affect overall performance?

(Hewlett Packard DM1Z – left: Scorpio mechanical drive. right: ADATA 256GB SSD).

The differences are substantial, and easily noticeable real world. We can see that read speeds have improved from 77 MB/s to 246MB/s and write speeds from 90 MB/s to 185 MB/s. The 4K and 4K QD32 test results aren't even in the same ball park.

The Solid State Drive has totally transformed the system performance, reducing boot times from 65 seconds to 23 seconds. Even the waking from hibernation time is halved.

We weren't sure what to expect when we were offered the Hewlett Packard DM1Z ultraportable laptop. I have been reviewing Fusion systems for months now and have been yearning to get a hands on with AMD's Fusion in the mobile marketspace.

The DM1Z is an amazingly impressive little machine, Hewlett Packard have clearly spent a long time in the R&D phase, ensuring that the overall package would stand out in a crowded marketplace. The end product is a showcase for attention to fine detail, exhibited in abundance.

The keyboard is built to a higher standard than anything we have seen in this price range, with absolutely no flex. The overall size is intuitive for people with even the biggest hands (like myself). This is the first time I have been able to type at 120 words per minute on an 11.6 inch machine, around 20-30 words per minute more than the MacBook Air I have in my possession right now.

While the associations with Apple are inevitable due to the appearance, it is justified. Hewlett Packard have clearly nabbed the best ideas, such as the row of function keys which don't need a secondary ‘fn' toggle to operate. The clear, subtle white lighting and stylish black back plate is also indicative of a Macintosh machine. The embossed lid design is also very striking and instantly eye catching in a public place.

Technically, AMD's Fusion technology makes a lot of sense in the superportable market. With a realistic battery life of close to seven hours this will prove a viable solution for a businessman or executive who doesn't want to be seen in public with a run of the mill, and often brutal looking netbook.

In regards to performance, the DM1Z delivers more than enough power to handle all office based demands and even some Adobe Photoshop work. I used the 64 bit version of CS5 on the machine and it was surprisingly responsive – as long as I didn't get carried away with the file sizes. Equally so, high definition entertainment is made thoroughly enjoyable by the superior TN panel and surprisingly good on board sound system.

The rear panel can be removed without a screwdriver, thanks to a clever tool-less design. Once inside we were pleasantly surprised to see 4GB of high quality Hynix DDR3 memory included as well as a capable Western Digital 7,200 320gb Scorpio hard drive. Quality components help Windows 7 performance, and while we would still swap out for an SSD at a later date, the ‘out of the box' performance is class leading, for the price.

The DM1Z really is going to take some beating, and is easily one of the best ultra portable low cost machines on the market right now.

UK pricing has yet to be confirmed, but they start at $450 in the US. We will update this page as we get more information.

Pros:

• fantastic appearance – very ‘mac like'
• battery life of up to 7 hours
• AMD Fusion hardware outclasses Intel ATOM
• class leading build quality
• function keys are a pleasure to use
• keyboard is excellent, no flex
• track pad is a good as we have seen in this sector
• onboard sound system is a cut above others at this price
• high resolution screen outclasses many others in the same price zone
• Western Digital Scorpio 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive included
• tool-less design for easy, internal access
• HDMI out
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• wireless connectivity is great, includes bluetooth

Cons:

• no back lit keyboard. ‘Luxury version' in the future?

KitGuru says: This is the finest ultraportable we have tested to date, and a wonderful showcase for AMD Fusion, in the mobile space.

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