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HP Pavilion dm3 review

in Laptops

HP Pavilion dm3

Verdict

Beautiful build combines with stunning good looks in a budget laptop of rare pedigree

Review Date: 1 Mar 2010

Reviewed By: Sasha Muller

Price when reviewed: £451 (£530 inc VAT)

Overall Rating
5 stars out of 6

Features & Design
6 stars out of 6

Value for Money
5 stars out of 6

Performance
4 stars out of 6

PCPRO Recommended

Details
Part Code VJ388EA
Review Date 1 Mar 2010
Price ex VAT £451
Price inc VAT £530
Overall rating 5 stars out of 6
Features & Design 6 stars out of 6
Value for Money 5 stars out of 6
Performance 4 stars out of 6
Warranty
Warranty 1yr collect and return
Physical specifications
Dimensions 326 x 230 x 32mm (WDH)
Weight 1.900kg
Travelling weight 2.3kg
Processor and memory
Processor AMD Athlon Neo X2 L335
Motherboard chipset AMD 780G
RAM capacity 4.00GB
Memory type DDR2
SODIMM sockets free 0
SODIMM sockets total 2
Screen and video
Screen size 13.3in
Resolution screen horizontal 1,366
Resolution screen vertical 768
Resolution 1366 x 768
Graphics chipset ATI Radeon HD 3200
Graphics card RAM 384MB
VGA (D-SUB) outputs 1
HDMI outputs 1
S-Video outputs 0
DVI-I outputs 0
DVI-D outputs 0
DisplayPort outputs 0
Drives
Capacity 320GB
Hard disk usable capacity 298GB
Spindle speed 7,200RPM
Internal disk interface SATA/300
Hard disk Hitachi HTS723232L9A360
Optical disc technology DVD writer
Optical drive HP External USB
Battery capacity 5,000mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT £0
Networking
Wired adapter speed 100Mbits/sec
802.11a support yes
802.11b support yes
802.11g support yes
802.11 draft-n support yes
Integrated 3G adapter no
Bluetooth support yes
Other Features
Wireless hardware on/off switch yes
Wireless key-combination switch no
Modem no
ExpressCard34 slots 0
ExpressCard54 slots 0
PC Card slots 0
USB ports (downstream) 4
PS/2 mouse port no
9-pin serial ports 0
Parallel ports 0
Optical S/PDIF audio output ports 1
Electrical S/PDIF audio ports 0
3.5mm audio jacks 2
SD card reader yes
Memory Stick reader yes
MMC (multimedia card) reader yes
Smart Media reader no
Compact Flash reader no
xD-card reader yes
Pointing device type Touchpad
Audio chipset IDT HD Audio
Speaker location Front edge
Hardware volume control? no
Integrated microphone? yes
Integrated webcam? yes
Camera megapixel rating 0.3mp
TPM no
Fingerprint reader no
Smartcard reader no
Carry case no
Operating system and software
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
OS family Windows 7
Recovery method Recovery partition, burn own recovery discs
Software supplied Microsoft Works 9.0, Cyberlink DVD Suite
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use 4hr 37min
Battery life, heavy use 1hr 43min
Overall application benchmark score 0.70
3D performance (crysis) low settings 15fps
3D performance setting Low
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User comments

HP PC

Hi Chris,
I don't know if you have made a purchase yet, but I thought you might like this article. Reasuring if you have purchased, encouraging if not.
Cheers
Brian

By Briantea on 4 Mar 2010

HP DM3 is worth considering

I purchased the DM3 because on paper it ticked all of the boxes. It has proved to be an astute purchase. It is slim, attractive, the keyboard is peerless and it is fast for web browsing HD video playback.

Before purchasing I was worried about the heat generated by the Athlon Neo x2 processor and the trackpad.

The bottom left of the base does heat up but it isn't uncomfortable. The trackpad is the main bugbear. You really have to play around with the settings to find the correct sensitivity. It supports gestures but the trackpad is too small to properly utilise them.

However, these small grievances in no way detract from a good deal. You smile from time to time when you think about what you get for such a small price.

The DM3 is a rare example of a fair deal for the consumer.

By dyagetme1 on 4 Mar 2010

Hp Support

But this Hp Pavilion dm3 has tremendous battery life and the bad is no optical drive,some config can be expensive and touchpad should be improved. For details visit http://www.iyogi.net/hp/

By miagale on 14 Jul 2010

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