Phone Specification

The HP Pavillion DM1-4209AU, the successor to the HP Pavillion DM1-4000AU, is now available in the Philippines. The HP DM1 is a small light 11.6-inch laptop which was launched last year with AMD Fusion APUs or Intel Core i3 processors.

The latest version sports a AMD’s newest Fusion APU, this one coming with a lower end dual-core CPU E-1200. This has a 1.4GHz dual core processor and Radeon HD 7310 graphics processing unit. At the outset the choice of the lower end chipset is disappointing. The AMD E-1200 will not perform better that last year AMD E-450 powered HP Pavillion DM1-4000AU. Also missing from HP DM1-4209AU is a USB 3.0 port.  

Notably, the HP DM1-4209AU competitor is  the new 11.6-inch Sony Vaio E with a faster AMD E2-1800 APU which has a dual core 1.7 GHz processor, more powerful AMD Radeon 7340 graphics and has a USB 3.0 port.

The HP DM1-4209AU at Php20,950 is cheaper than  the 11.6-inch Sony Vaio E which costs Php23,990. The HP DM1-4209AU also comes with a larger 500 GB hard drive, as compared to the 320 GB unit found in the 11.6-inch Sony Vaio E. On the other hand the 11.6-inch Sony Vaio E comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, while the  HP DM1-4209AU comes with Windows 7 Starter.

The new HP DM1-4209AU is not a bad deal for its asking price. But for a little more money, 11.6-inch Sony Vaio E is the more capable device. The HP DM1-4209AU is also not better than last years HP DM1-4000AU.

All in all, I am a bit disappointed about this release.