HP Pavilion DM3-1112SA 13.3-inch Notebook
Posted by Notcot on Oct 31, 2010 in PCs & Laptops |
Product Description
HP PAVILION DM31112SA NOTEBOOK VX837EAABU Laptops Notebooks
- AMD Athlon Neo X2 (Dual Core) (L335) 1.6GHz Proc
- 3072MB DDR2 Memory
- 320GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
- 13.3 inch 1366 x 768 Display
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) Operat
I bought this as i wanted something a little more powerful to replace my netbook, but something portable enough to carry around campus when at Uni – the HP DM3 is perfect.
There are two models listed on here, the 1020EA and this, the 1112SA.
The differences between the 1020EA and the 1112SA, respectively, which make up the £70 difference are:
-4GB Ram vs 2GB
-320GB HDD vs 250GB
-External Disk Drive included with the 1020EA
Tackling these differences individually:
-2GB of RAM is plenty for most uses; the system runs Windows 7 which although takes up a lot of RAM, is much more efficient than Vista. It’s possible to upgrade to 8GB in the future and make full use of the 64bit operating system, and to upgrade to 4GB would be approximately £20-30 (when factoring the resale price of the installed RAM) – not exactly breaking the bank…
-250GB HDD – plenty of space; I’ve over 12,000 music files and videos, and still have over 100GB left; It’s not enough space to put my entire photo catalogue on, but being a photographer I’m looking into something in the 1/2TB region for that…
External Disk Drive – not much of an issue, most common programs are downloadable, my music comes in the form of MP3’s and I have a DVD player for DVD’s…
This laptop is flawed as the perfect laptop, but for someone who wants power, portability, connectivity (HDMI, four USB’s etc.) and a genuinely high-quality look and feel, you can’t go wrong.
Many complain about the trackpad; no, its not the best, but its not unusable – I’ve experienced no problems with it…
Overall, I can’t express how highly I recommend this to everyone but those in desperate need of a Disk Drive, or something bigger…
Rating: 5 / 5
I have the more expensive HP Pavilion dm3-1020EA, 13.3-inch Notebook (Windows 7 Home Premium, AMD Athlon Neo X2 Processor L335, 4 GB RAM, 320GB SATA HDD, Ethernet, Bluetooth, 6 Cell Battery up to 6 Hours Life) of this laptop that Amazon have been selling competitively for a while. The DM3-1112SA has less RAM but should still perform relatively well. I don’t want to downgrade it becasue it is a delight to use but the Amazon spec claims that this version also includes an external drive. This is not the case according to the detailed specifications on the HP site.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have been on the search for a laptop around the £400 mark for a few months now. I first seen this laptop at comet priced at around £500. After seeing others I knew I wasn’t going to get a brilliant laptop for my price. However, when I seen this I was amazed, at £370 I brought it straight away. It has everything, a decent processor and enough RAM for my general use. It doesn’t come with an external drive but this is hardly a down side because you can buy a external blu-ray drive for it. I must mention that it cannot play 1080p HD only 720p HD which is a down side. The laptop is well built and looks a lot more expensive then it is. You get a lot more for what your paying for, the battery life is outstanding. Another negative is the sound. It’s OK but that’s about it. I plug speakers in to listen to my music and something is definitely missing, even with the speakers in. It’s nothing wrong with my speakers because the sound is great on other laptops.
Overall a fantastic laptop and any downsides are backed up by the fabulous price.
Windows 7 is brill too
Rating: 5 / 5
My first impressions of this laptop (after owning a 13″ IBM Thinkpad) was that it has an odd screen. Widescreen just doesn’t look right, with large bezels at top and bottom of the screen.
For a beginner, this laptop might seem rather confusing, constantly nagging to install new versions of Java (even after I’d told it, repeatedly, yes, go ahead) And don’t get me started on how many “HP Health Assistant” and “Symantec Virus Scan” messages pop up.
The first annoyance came when I tried to open a .jpg picture file. Windows 7 is nippy on this laptop, and can display images almost instantly. But HP has decided to make the default .jpg viewer their “HP Media Smart” program. So, you click on a jpg to view it, and it spends 12 seconds loading the app to show it. And it loads it as a “slideshow” (of this one photo), so you can’t press left/right to view previous/next photos. It gives a bad impression of Windows 7 straightaway, yet it’s HP’s fault for replacing something simple and good with something bloaty.
The very worst aspect of this laptop is that the cursor key buttons are also used for Page Down/Up/Home/End. So, if you want to press “Page Down”, you have to press a button at the same time as the “Fn” button. SO CTRL+End now requires three keys to be held down. This one feature frustrates me endlessly.
Every application I use on my work PC or Desktop uses the same key combinations (such as Page Down to move down a page in a .pdf file), but when I use the HP, I have to remember to press this extra key. Even in Notepad, I have to concentrate on which keys to hold down just to jump to the bottom of a file. I hate it !!
Another annoyance is that, by default, the F-keys are set to doing functions such as increasing brightness (like on the Mac), rather than behaving in the Windows F-key manner. Again, this is a poor decision by HP.
On the plus side, the Pavilion’s got very good keyboard, but the trackpad’s buttons require a deep THUD of a click, rather than a light touch.
Windows 7’s Aero effects look fab thanks to the Radeon 3200 graphics.
Performance is very good, even in Visual Studio 2010, and this is particularly impressive for a machine which costs about the same as a Netbook. It looks far more expensive than it is, with Power, Wi-Fi, Volume-mute & CAPS lock lights, and aluminium edges, rather than plastic you’d normally get in this price bracket.
But, it isn’t as lightweight as I’d have hoped. It really does feel as though you’re carrying around a full size (and weight) machine. Style wise, it looks good, but it looks “pregnant” underneath. The large 6-cell battery means that although the sides are fairly slim, the undercarriage bulges out.
All in all, HP’s spoiled what should’ve been a fantastic bargain of a laptop.
With a thinner battery, separate Page Up/Down/Home/End keys, less bloatware software installed, and the F-keys behaving as F-keys out of the box, I would’ve highly recommended this laptop.
As it is, sorry, but I wish I’d bought an Acer Timeline instead.
Rating: 3 / 5
I bought this laptop from Amazon about two weeks ago with the intention of serving two functions.
1. Back up for my main desktop PC which runs on Vista (I do all my web browsing and ebaying on this machine)
2. To use when travelling abroad
Having had the chance to play around with it, can say that I am suitably impressed.
The construction is solid, the keyboard has a matt black finish, which makes it easy to use in bright sunlight (no glare or reflection) and as it’s from HP, the quality speaks for itself.
Now, I need to make a distinction here. This is classed as an ultra mobile laptop, not a netbook. Most net books only have a 10 or 11 inch screen, but this one has a 13.3 incher, so it immediately stands out from the crowd (great for watching movies or vid streams).
Net surfing was a piece of cake, but for some reason, the HP on line assistant would not let me connect to the net, so I just switched over to the tried and tested Internet Explorer.
It found my home network and there were no connection issues. Pages loaded at the speed of light.
Someone mentioned in an earlier review about the poor sound quality, but myself and a mate watched several You Tube vid clips a few days ago, and we did not notice any such audio issues.
Ok, if you want some booming bass, then connect a suitable speaker set, but overall, I’d say the sound quality was excellent.
The trackpad can become a bit unresponsive sometimes, especially if your hands are sweaty, so if this is a big issue, just get yourself a wireless USB mouse.
One key thing though. The power button is on the side of the lappy. You need to slide it to power it on.
Like a fool, I spent ages looking for the power button when I first got it and was very frustrated, as I could not figure out why the damn thing would not power up.
Admittedly I have not had the chance to use it outside the home yet, so cannot comment on how well the Wi Fi perfoms away from its “comfort zone”.
Beware if you a purchasing one of those little shockproof/waterproof sleeves, as they cannot accommodate the power adapter (only the unit itself).
Before you buy, determine you requirements carefully. For me, this is the perfect travelling companion and backup PC, but if your intending to do graphic heavy presentations or full on multi media gaming, then there might be other higher end spec models, which could better suit your needs.
For the price and for what it does,it’s money well spent.
Rating: 5 / 5