[Tech] Netbook HP DM1-4000SD

I used  my Asus 1000HE netbook the last 2 years and I took it with me on holidays for entertainment, for mail, skype and as a glorified imagetank. I also used it to be able to do some internetting on the couch, it was small, light and had a 7+ hours battery length.

However last holidays it became to slow since I could not use my regular movies since the netbook was too slow for those. Instead I had to rely on DVDs or 480p MKVs. Since I am also filming in 1080p with my videocamera/DSLR I was not able to watch these on my netbook and so I had to look for a decent replacement.

Some requirements I had:

• Better resolution, 1024x600 was not decent enough for everything I did on the netbook.
• Max screen size of 11" since the netbook was then still easy to put into a backpack. 
• Weight is still very important since I take it with me on a holiday in my handluggage. The Asus netbook weighed 1 kg.
• Possible to handle 1080p content.
• HDMI output.
• Still a decent battery length, 5+ hours.
• A decent price which depended on the possibilities.

I looked at some of the Asus models but then I had to either reside on the Atom platform or had to accept the 12" screen. I also look at some ultrabooks but then I had to pay 800+ euros and had an even larger screen of 14".

Due to my requirement of the decent battery length the AMD Fusion chipset came along. It promised good battery length and good performance (also graphically). So based on this and my previous requirement the HP DM1-4000SD netbook came on top of my list. I read a few reviews and finally ordered it. It's a sturdy netbook with a good screen and a good keyboard. Battery length is about 4.5 hours with WIFI on while doing some internetting and installating some new software. The screen resolution of 1366x768 is quite nice and pretty workable ! The weigth was a bit more then expected, but 1.5 kgs is still doable.

The netbook is setup with Windows 7 Home Premium, the 32 bits version. Which is a bit strange to me since the AMD Fusion platform is 64 bits. I decided to reinstall the laptop with a x64 version of Home Premium while using the same installation key. This also provided me with a way to get rid of all the HP software which was installed. So in the end I was quite happy with my new netbook.

Some utilities I ran into:
BatteryBar - A tool which provides a toolbar in which either the remaining time is shown or the percentage of available battery capacity.
AMD System Monitor - A tool specific for the AMD Fusion platform which indicates processor load, graphic processor load, memory usage, etc.

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have some specific questions about this netbook !