HP Probook Notebook
If there is one thing I like about HP ProBook notebooks is that they are good business notebooks that are cheap. Compared to the EliteBooks of the same manufacturer, the price has been cut down to half. Maybe the specs are not that amazing as they are with $1700 business notebooks but unless you need to work with 3D application, the EliteBook series is the right choice.
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The 4510s is one of the best examples of cheap and good HP ProBook notebook which offers good value for its money. For $750 you get a 2.1 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6570 processor, the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD video card, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM and 250 GB of available disk space. This notebook is dedicated to any small and medium business. For multinational companies, we do recommend the EliteBook because they can support a wide variety of applications and can handle multitasking at a glance. There is nothing amazing about the design. The ProBook 4510s is entirely black and made mostly of plastic. We didn’t like the fact that there is too much flexing here. The base of the notebook will flex under heavy pressure so we don’t recommend you putting anything heavy on the notebook and don’t press you hands against it too much either. The back of the display also has some flex so be careful how you handle it when you open and close it. This notebook will do just fine as a desktop replacement in our office or at home but be careful how you handle because it’s much more fragile than other expensive business notebooks. Too many shocks are going to produce serious damage and you will end up with a cheap and useless notebook.
The lid is made of glossy plastic and the HP logo stand out with a silver shine. This entire notebook is a combination of glossy and matte plastic and it really has the serious look of a business man in a black suit. HP was still aware that even if this notebook is cheap, it still needs some protection. HP 3D DriveGuard is going to keep the hard drive protected even if the notebook suffers from shocks like falling off the desk or accidentally hitting the table or wall when you’re carrying it. HP ProtectTools is all about drive encryption and HP Spare Key is an application that allows you to access the computer even if you forgot your password. The 15.6 inch display offers a good balance of color and contrast and it does not look anything like a cheap display. Horizontal viewing angles are ok if you want to gather some colleagues around and show them that new presentation you’ve been working on. Even if HP has always hit the bulls eye with the excellent quality of the speakers (especially since the Pavilion series gather some really good multimedia notebooks), the speakers on the 4510s will produce distorted sound when you turn up the volume. One good thing is their placement. We like it when the speakers are above the keyboard so the sound is projected directly up. If you ever plan on watching a movie on this notebook, buy some headphones or a good set of external speakers (in fact, external speakers may not be such a bad idea since this laptop is meant for sitting on a desk at the office).
One thing we definitely did not expect to find on a 15.6 notebook is a numerical pad. My laptop has the same size and when I look at my keyboard I see absolutely no way a numerical pad could fit in here. This is a nice touch since people at the office may need to work with spreadsheet and this small pad helps you handle the number way better. The spacing between the keys reminds us of Sony VAIO notebooks. The keys are matte black instead of glossy and this gives the notebook a nice look. There is no annoying clicking noise when you type and the keys will offer a positive response. The touchpad is ok and the texture is not disturbing in any way. The left and right mouse buttons are properly sized but you are going to have to press them hard if you want to hear that clicking sound. This notebook comes with 4 USB ports, one Kensington lock slot, a media card reader, an Ethernet port, the headphones out and microphone in jacks, the HDMI port and the VGA out and an Express Card slot.
The fan seems to produce quite a lot of noise but that should be no problem if you already work in a noisy office. When it’s quiet though, the sound coming out of the notebook will resemble that of a hair dryer. However, the fan does a good job at keeping this notebook under normal temperature conditions. Another important aspect that might be appealing to you as it was to us is the fact that HP has 2 different batteries to offer for this notebook. The standard configuration will provide you the 6-cell battery while our configuration (the $750 one) will provide the 8-cell battery. Personally I was amazed to see the performance of the battery especially since this notebook is desktop replacement so you probably won’t keep it unplugged a lot. 
With the Windows Vista “high performance” mode activated, the wireless card turned on and the display brightness set to a nearly maximum level, this notebook provided 5 hours of battery life, which is above the category average. This means that if you use the notebook in Windows Vista “power saver” mode you will get another half an hour or maybe even an hour extra of battery life.
The bottom line is if you need a cheap notebook that can handle office applications then the HP ProBook 4510s is just the right notebook for you. Even if there are some flaws like the built-in quality and the difficulty to upgrade, it is still a good choice for a desktop replacement. Do not expect impressive performance. For that, you can always so with the HP EliteBooks.
