How do we upgrade the memory on this ?

Thanks
Gehan

Has the Techreport ever heard of MPC-HC and DXVA?

you can play H.264 content with minimal cpu usage as long as you have a compatible gpu, which the mobility radeon 3400 certainly is. The paragraph about H.264 playback made me cringe.

Go here http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/ and test it again. You will find that 720p AND 1080p run just fine.

With that said, the Acer Timeline series and other Intel CULV based laptops will crush this thing and the whole Neo platform. Better cpu performance and much better battery life, the Core 2 Solo SU3500 is rated at 5W! Yes you would be stuck with intel 4500 graphics but who would get a single core laptop for gaming these days anyway, and you can't have it both ways.

Intel CULV + ion would be ideal though.

Very disappointed in the battery life. A Core 2 Duo with 9300M/HD3x00 equipped laptop is going to post similar marks on a 6-cell but with of course much greater amount of power available for about the same or not much more in cost.

From a looks stand point it really isn't so hot either. Too much gloss, unnecessary abstract art, cheap looking chrome accents, etc.

Thanks for the review. After I read this article I went to check it out. I ended up purchasing the HP dv2-1030us at Staples for $599 after a $150 instant rebate and $50 mail in rebate. I like the size and weight for travel. I was looking at the 10 inch netbooks but they are just a bit too small for me.

The only thing that really bothers me is the fan noise when the machine is idle. In a room with some some noise like a TV or people talking it is acceptable. However, when you are in a quiet room it is too loud. I wish there was a way to tune it down just a bit.

It would have been better if the fan exit was in the back so that the noise would be shielded by the display instead of on the front side. I'm not sure why the fan is on the front side but I'm sure there were many design issues that were considered in the placement and cooling design.

Hmm, this looks like a perfect replacement for the daughter's Barton-vintage Athlon XP box. It's old & tired and takes up too much space.

I'd happily trade my notebook (Turion X2, 4gigs, 160gig, hd2600-512, 15.4 @ 1280x800) for this.

Having said that, I'm pretty darn happy with my notebook, though the thing does tend to warm up too much.

Where is fusion?

GPU accelerated video decoding has been missing for years now in Quicktime and Adobe Flash Video, although I'm fairly certain it's not limited to Radeon GPUs. Can anybody with nVidia GPUs in their possession confirm this?

Sadly, the bloat is what keeps the price down, since those crapware writers are subsidizing costs. Still, nothing a format won't fix.

But seriously, Juno and NetZero? Did I miss the paragraph about the integrated 56k modem? :P

This type of system appeals to me far more than a "netbook" Hopefully AMD can get the processor power down a little - as I see it the only real advantage of a netbook is battery life. Anyone know how battery life would vary with a different OS (maybe too much happening in the backround)?

Step 1) Scrub all that bloatware off.
Step 2) Burn your legit copy of Vista x64
Step 3) Reformat and install ubuntu--I mean Kubuntu.
Step 4) Never look back.

In North America, you can use a SIM card from AT&T or Verizon.

Umm, Verison offers SIM cards?! Since when exactly ? As far as i'm concerned, they're a CDMA provider and their LTE conversion has yet to materialize..

Are you sure you didn't mean to say T-Mobile instead ?

Adi

Thank you for including such games as WoW and Audiosurf. :)

I'm really eying (eyeing?) this notebook for my birthday but I would like the battery life to be like 1.5 hours longer. This still comes with the onboard x1250 right? Does disabling the 3410 result in longer battery life?

Nice review, looks like a pretty decent system for those who need something more than a netbook, but don't want the weight of a cheap Dell budget laptop. Looking forward to the (hoped-for) Congo version later this year - a 45nm dual core CPU and a more recent chipset and graphics chip (esp. if it can run off the integrated graphics in battery mode to improve that aspect).

"Or as glossy, which is one of the system's few but inescapable flaws. "

This part really is opinion. More power is always better. More battery life is always better. Lower price is always better. That glossy sucks is opinion. I for one, would not buy a laptop without a glossy display.

Good review otherwise.

Seems like a great piece of kit.

I think this computer would be perfect if not for the lousy piano black that covers the entire thing.

PC manus really need to get off the piano black on portable computers. It looks really sharp on desktops and monitors, but I really don't like how easy it is to make a shiny new laptop look completely filthy.

Great review. One thing I wonder about the graphics and related battery life is whether the platform has a 'hybrid mode' tat shuts down the discrete graphics chip entirely? Also it might be interesting to run the battery test with Aero disabled, perhaps that works even the integrated graphics more or may fire up the discrete one.

Also I'm betting the mk 2 version of this platform will be a lot better all around between the power saving die shrinks (AMDs 65nm process was never great in that regard) and smaller tweaks to make it more appealing. This type of system is exacly what I'd consider for a first personal laptop, actually for a laptop I could do without discrete graphics if the integrated is decent enough.

*edit I'm still not sure what to think of this versus EOL or deal systems that can undercut the price and have better hardware. The size plays a role but there isn't an exact competitor to this yet, but for example Dell has a deal on the Inspiron 15 which with HD4330 graphics and a 6-cell battery comes out to $600+tax&ship. Not sure on the battery life but that's an area where the budget ultraportables will have to improve if the HP is any indication.