HP Pavilion dm4 Notebook Review

Editor's Score
Features:	Performance:
Value:
The Verdict: the HP Pavilion dm4 is a pretty good looking, well constructed and reasonably well performing notebook

The left side has DSUB, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors along with the Wired Ethernet connector and audio input/output. For some reason, HP has placed the power and hard drive LEDs on the left side which is surprising as you never get to see them when using the notebook.

The front is mostly clean with just a memory card reader as well as a pair of Altec Lansing speakers while the right houses the optical drive and two USB ports along with the power connector.

A third USB port would’ve certainly been a good addition to the HP Pavilion dm4 as the two ports on the right are pretty close together and connecting something like the flip camera or a larger USB stick blocks both the ports.

The keyboard on the HP Pavilion dm4 is back-lit, of the chiclet kind and quite comfortable to type on. Its fairly quiet as well. About the only complain I have is the column of keys on the right side of the keyboard as I am fairly used to having backspace and return keys on the right edge of the keyboard. The trackpad exhibited a bit of a weird behaviour- it’s a bit like HP’s envy series on notebooks where the entire trackpad, including the buttons can track the surface. As long as you don’t have your thumb rested on the buttons, it works wonderfully but when you do that, expect random jumps.

We tested the dm4 with some of the recent notebooks that we have reviewed such as the Acer Travelmate TM8372T and the Lenovo Edge 15. The following is how the Pavilion dm4 performed in CPU, 3D, Hard Disk and Overall tests.

As you can see, the Pavilion dm4 is a pretty good performer for an average laptop. During our tests, the laptop never really got too hot to handle however an audible fan would kick in every time the machine was stressed a bit. It wasn’t very loud but definitely noticeable. Battery life on the HP Pavilion dm4 is pretty much average and we managed to get roughly four hours from it which is standard for a notebook of such configuration.

Priced at AED 4, 099 (US$1,110) , the HP Pavilion dm4 is a pretty good looking, well constructed and reasonably well performing notebook that we have no issue recommending.