Laptop Thoughts: HP dm1z: A Fusion-Powered Netbook

"HP's been on board AMD's ultraportable bandwagon since the chipmaker first shipped the underwhelming Congo platform, and HP continued to produce reasonably compelling not-quite-netbooks with the Athlon/Turion II Neo-equipped Nile platform. But now that AMD has made a concerted effort to dethrone Intel's Atom with Brazos, HP has been able to produce a true netbook competitor."

Contradicting the rumours that the netbook is dead, HP has announced the dm1z, with a starting price of $449. With AMD's dual-core E-350 processor, Fusion APU, and Hudson FCH chipset, the dm1z supports 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory, has a 7200 rpm WD Scorpio 320GB hard drive, 1366x768 resolution on a 11.6-inch glossy monitor, gigabit ethernet, b/g/n wireless, and weighs 3.52-pounds. The base model shipped (in this review) with 3GB RAM configured, and a 320GB 7200rpm drive, and was $449. Performance is just okay - this system doesn't appear to be one that gamers will covet. The battery is rated by HP at 9.5-hours, but in real life got slightly more that 7-hours of usage, pretty reasonable, I'd say. The system is noisy from the fan running almost constantly to keep the temperature down. The LCD screen is rated as "uninspired," but, this is a netbook that can pass the "Grandma Test" - it can play 1080p video from YouTube, and it is fast enough that grandma won't complain. This is a machine that has grabbed a Silver Editors' Choice from Anandtech, so it may be worth a look if you're looking for a netbook.