HP Notebook Series Computers: 9 Out of 10 Ain’t Bad!
With the well-known aesthetic appeal of Mac notebooks, you can hardly blame HP for getting on the bandwagon. Their featured HP notebook, the HP Pavilion 1128TX rivals any Apple, especially in the aesthetic department. Reviewers have raved over its sleek black casing detailed with silver concentric circles and the lustrous keypad. Not only attractive, this HP notebook along with the HP DV series is soft to the touch and typing is as quiet as a mouse. The one bad egg is the HP Pavilion DV3540TX Special Edition, which sports the same feel and illuminating logo as the HP Pavilion 1128TX (similar to the MacBook designs), but in this case the colour leaves a little to be desired both for practicality reasons and for plain good looks.
The HP Pavilion DV3540TX Special Edition’s battery lasts around an hour and a half but this is playing a DVD at full volume, and with all power saving options turned off. The HP Special Edition has hardware features to make your average customer happy: 320 GB, 3 GB, Intel Core 2 Duo, GeForce 9300 M GS, 3 USB ports, and an already installed Vista Home Premium operating system. It might not be pretty but perhaps it invites a second look.
The real gems in the HP notebook range can be found in the HP Pavilion 1128tx and the HP Mini 2140 (Intel Atom N270 processor 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM). And what’s better, these laptops manage to cover every demographic. The HP Pavilion 1128TX suits your average gamer scoring 3340 in 3DMark06 (a program designed to test the punch of your graphics card). The only downside is a less than long-lasting battery. That, and despite an 802.11n capable adaptor installed, it doesn’t come with Bluetooth.
The Mini 2140 (Intel Atom N270 processor 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM) has got everything you’d want to be able to do with a netbook: web surfing, working on documents and some basic music and video features. The real selling point, however, is the keypad. Spanning the entire base, this mini notebook manages to make typing much easier in comparison to others in its class. Plus, its aluminium construction—though adding some weight—provides the peace of mind knowing it can handle a few bumps now and again. HP also has a more business minded laptop. The HP EliteBook 6930p rocks in terms of battery life lasting over 3 hours, and has some important albeit basic features: 3 USB ports, firewire, MMC card reader slot, but no DVI or HDMI, which means you don’t get any video outputs (digital or otherwise).
Overall, outside a few minor issues, there is good bushel of PC notebooks in this years HP notebook range.
December 18th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I have been waiting for what feels like FOREVER to purchase a netbook/UMPC. I was very excited when the Asus EEE pc came out and even moreso when I heard the MSI wind was coming to the market. But for some reason, they always lacked some sort of component that I found necessary to my needs.
After typing a bit on the Asus EEE 1000h pc, I was quite disappointed by the fact that the shift key was simply NOT in the right place. As a writer, as well as a touch typist, that is absolutely necessary to keep me sane and in the thought of what I’m attempting to write. If I was annoyed after only 5 minutes, I can’t imagine what it’d be after three hours of writing.
This little netbook simply has it all – a perfect size screen… not too big but not too small. It has the correct keyboard configuration (therefore nothing is in an unusual place of some kind). And considering what it has inside, I just felt it was the right choice to make. Yes, SSD is great and all, but until the technology has a higher demand and drops a bit in price – it was just not worth it for me at the time to get something with an SSD.
As for the optical drive… most I do I can do through USB or through the linked network at my home (and I realize now that I rarely ever have used a cd rom drive for these reasons).
If you’re looking for a portable and simple/easy machine to use for internet, documentation, school work, etc… this is it. Plain and simple.
I’m 100% satisfied right now with this product.