Fully functional hardward in an elegant design

By Paul "gismoman" (Melbourne, FL)

This review is for: HP Pavilion dm3-2010us

This size computers become popular because it hits a sweet spot between portability and functionality. The first time I bought an Asus ultra-light 13.3-inch notebook last fall, and it was great. When my Daugh needed a new laptop, she wanted one like mine for its Flexible, lightweight, fully web-page-size 1366x768 screen, use low-power and greater computing power than a netbook comparison. (can netbooks with their smaller screens and 1366x600 single-core processors, less functional in my opinion, although a pound or weigh less.)

As compared to my Asus UL30a-X5, the notebook is similarly priced and has almost identical specifications. I purchsed the DM3 due to local sales and trade in an old computer to a notebook they ran 450th The differences between the Asus notebook and these are as follows. The Asus is a square, flat, brushed metal finish, while the HP has an elegantly curved style with a design etched into it ... : Win HP. The Asus weighs 3.75 pounds and has slightly longer battery life weighs 4.2 pounds, the HP .... : Asus win. Both with 1.3 GHz dual-core processors (Intel C2D but is Asus, HP, AMD X2 K325), both of 4GHz RAM, have both full versions of Win7 Home 64-bit, both have 13.3 "LED-LCD .. . tie. Unexpectedly, HP has a 320GB 7200rpm HDD marginally faster, the Asus a larger 500GB 5400rpm ... Winner = your choice.

The functionality of the notebook is great, as long as you have not tried to do processor-intensive tasks. Beautiful, clear, bright display. Boots up quickly, and the home screen lets you choose a proprietary Linux-like web browser, e-mail-viewer-Music-Video player or Win7. The 4GB RAM allows quite a bit of multitasking without a noticeable decrease in performance. I notice no difference in speed between the two laptops, and both work very word processing, web brousing, and plays videos and music. I've downloaded the free Microsoft Security Essentials, and it does not seem to slow down the machine at all. (Unlike some other resource hungry anti-virus-spyware program suites.) Chicklet keyboard is typical of this style (I prefer a regular keyboard) and the touchpad is easy to use. None of these DVD drives are ultra-light aircraft, so if you need a figure in the price, if you need one. It is helpful to have one because you should either a set of recovery DVDs from the factory HDD, or you can (use very large) USB drive.

Overall, a nice computer with exceptional design and finish. Recommended.