Looks are not everything. There is also money. That sounds pretty flat from us, but appearance and price are the two issues for IT managers and buyers in the 13.3-inch ultraportable notebook segment. There are plenty of slim, under-four-pound symbols are available, but wear the most sexy slimline designer price tag - starting at $ 1499 for Adamo Dell or Apple MacBook Air, for example, or $ 1889 for the Lenovo ThinkPad X301.
The 3.8-pound HP ProBook 5310m changes in the math. These thin black plate has an anodized aluminum cover and palm rest and magnesium-based alloy, a sunny LED-backlit screen, a comfortable, MacBook-style keyboard gum, brilliant instant-on browser and contact manager software , and plenty of power thanks to an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (HP calls it the thinnest notebook with a standard rather than low-voltage CPU).
It costs $ 899 - low enough to spread not only an executive, but cheerfully to implement or to employees. To be happy, style-conscious people, they say.
Three (Super) Models
Actually, the ProBook starts at an even lower $ 699 with a low-voltage processor, Intel's 10-watt, SU2300 Celeron 1.2 GHz, 2 GB of DDR2 memory and a 160 GB hard drive.
For a satisfactory performance over the life of several years, HP recommends the $ 899-model and its 25-watt Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 - a 2.26 GHz dual-core with a powerful 6 MB Level 2 cache and 1066 MHz front Side Bus. That the configuration also comes with a 320GB, 7,200 rpm hard drive. Stepping up to $ 999 adds Bluetooth and mobile broadband.
Each member of the trio ProBook measures 8.7 by 12.9 by 0.9 inches and shines with a beautiful metal rather than plastic chassis, and three-axis accelerometer protection, the system parks the hard drive when a shock or drop is detected. Like other micro-light aircraft is the 5310m has no built-in optical drive, a USB plug-in DVD ± RW burner with a $ 99 option.
The particularly slender shape dictated a smaller battery. HP rates the unit unplugged life with up to six and a half hours, but our real world of work behind the meetings, that an average of three hours and 40 minutes of word processing and web browsing with screen brightness rejected three or four notches from maximum. This is not unusual, but it is a compact notebook sufficient.
The chiclet or island has an excellent keyboard layout (using Ctrl and Delete keys at the right lower left and upper right corner, respectively) and feel good entry, although our test unit space required rather than a company just type the brush of a thumb, if we type occurs at high speed.
The touchpad works smoothly, although the glossy surface collects a lot of fingerprints and stains. The Synaptics driver allows you to a handful of two-finger gestures such as scrolling, rotate photos or other objects, or sliding doors and pinching fingers together or apart to zoom. These take a little practice, but to grow or become comfortable, albeit at the risk of longing for a larger touchpad.
The 13.3-inch screen packs 1366 x 768 pixels and bright LED backlight. Proved to be a clear and vivid colors, and text was sharp, but got the pull-down menu text was a little too small.
A two-megapixel webcam is centered above the display. Two USB 2.0 ports are on the right side and third on the left side of the system, the latter next to an Ethernet port and DisplayPort video interface (user-adapter for older VGA, DVI or HDMI monitors need). An SD / MMC flash card slot sits next to a combination of headphone and microphone jack on the right side of the HP.
Easy Application Access
The 32-bit version of Windows 7 Professional is preinstalled with McAfee security software, WinZip, Skype, Roxio Creator, and utilities, and the trial version of Microsoft Office 2007. More interesting are HP QuickLook 3 and QuickWeb and programs through special buttons on the right side of the keyboard that will work when Windows is shutting down: This used to start a mini-Linux environment to run in less than 20 seconds without booting Windows, for quick access to contact and calendar data, and a Web browser.
Quick Look 3 builds your Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007 information, letting you see a contact, add an appointment or e-mail sent is that when you next log into Outlook and the network. QuickWeb works with a hard-wired or Wi-Fi Internet connection to call a browser with full functionality, including history, bookmarks, and a read-only mode for guest access or browsing suspicious websites. It also offers a screen brightness control and a battery-averting measure energy to unexpected couplings.
The HP Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics to keep it at an all-work-and-no-play rate; laptop's 3DMark06 benchmark result of 918 is in its native resolution 1366 x 768, south of a capable gaming machine. But his PCMark Vantage Cinebench R10 and scores of 4715 and 3960, respectively, while trying to make something more than three minutes to Cinebench scene are not so bad, and the system feels bold and respond in everyday applications.
We are impressed very satisfied with the ProBook 5310m. He draws the admiring glances of the executive branch status-offs in performance notebook buyers whose budgets are determined to stick to three rather than four digits, and provides a very good mix of productivity, size, weight and battery life. Shoppers put this in a very short list.