A little more freedom
Published on 10th December 2011 Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutesA few weeks ago, I decided to address the fact that my Toshiba laptop have next to useless battery life. The arrival of an issue of PC Pro that included a review of lower cost laptops was another spur for looking on the web to see what was in stock at nearby chain stores. In the end, I plumped for an HP Pavilion dm4 from a branch of Argos. In fact, they seem to have a wider range of laptops than PC World!
The Pavilion dm4 seems to come in two editions and I opted for the heavier of these, though it still is lighter than my Toshiba Equium as I found on a recent trip away from home. Its battery life is a revelation for someone who never has got anything better than three hours from a netbook. Having more than five hours certainly makes it suitable for those longer train journeys away from home, and I have seen remaining battery life being quoted as exceeding seven hours from time to time, though I wouldn't depend on that.
Of course, having longer battery life would be pointless if the machine didn't do what else was asked of it. It comes with the 64-bit of Windows 7 and this taught me that this edition of the operating system also runs 32-bit software, a reassuring discovering. There's a trial version of Office 2010 on there too and, having a licence key for the Home and Student edition, I fully activated it. Otherwise, I added a few extras to make myself at home, such as Dropbox and VirtuaWin (for virtual desktops as I would in Linux). While I was playing with the idea of adding Ubuntu using Wubi, I am not planning to set up dual booting of Windows and Linux like I have on the Toshiba. Little developments like this can wait.
Regarding the hardware, the CPU is an Intel Core i3 affair and there's 4 MB of memory on board. The 14" screen makes for a more compact machine without making it too diminutive. The keyboard is of the scrabble-key variety and works well too, as does the trackpad. There's a fingerprint scanner for logging in and out without using a password, but I haven't got to check how this works so far. It all zips along without any delays, and that's all that anyone can ask of a computer.
There is one eccentricity in my eyes though: it appears that the functions need to be used in combination with the Fn key for them to work like they would on a desktop machine. That makes functions like changing the brightness of the screen, adjusting the sound of the speakers and turning the Wi-Fi on and off more accessible. My Asus Eee PC netbook and the Toshiba Equium both have things the other way around, so I found this set of affairs unusual, but it's just a point to remember rather than being a nuisance.
Though HP may have had its wobbles regarding its future in the PC making business, the Pavilion feels well put together and very solidly built. The premium paid over the others on my shortlist seems to have been worth it. If HP does go down the premium laptop route as has been reported recently, this is the kind of quality that they would need to deliver to just higher prices. Saying that, is this the time to do such a thing with other devices challenging the PC's place in consumer computing? It would be a shame to lose the likes of the Pavilion dm4 from the market to an act of folly.
I've had a dm4 (the 1160us version) for about 8 months now. There's a minimal install option in the system restore function that loads only Windows and the HP drives, but none of the bloatware at all, which is great -- the clean system runs fast.
I did set up mine to dual-boot Linux. All four primary partitions were taken up by the default installation, so I backed up the HP_TOOLS partition and recreated it as a logical partition (there's also an HP_TOOLS installation file on the HP site), which then let me set up virtual Linux partitions (after shrinking the Windows partition, of course). I also used EasyBCD to set up a boot menu (I put Grub2 in a /boot partition). I keep all my filles on a separate NTFS data partition that's easily accessible by both operating systems.
Sounds like you've had a good experience with your HP, David.
As it happens, I did try getting Ubuntu going on mine using Wubi but it wouldn't start so I abandoned that approach. So far, I am not brave enough to do the tweaking that you have done though my Toshiba does dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 quite happily and on an upgraded hard drive too. I'll bear in mind what you ahve done should i decide to give it a go on my dm4.