Notebooks continue to evolve and now there are such things as entertainment notebooks, here HP put a Linux front end for 12 second booting into DVD or CD play.
Buy Now...
This stylish grey and black offering has a WXGA widescreen that supports 1280x786 resolution and very clear it is to. The total dimensions are 33x23x4cm and the weight is around 2.4kilos.
As with the recent notebook I reviewed I charged the battery fully and settled down on the sofa with a DVD total time till the unit died was 1hour and 56minutes somewhat different to the 36 minutes of that other manufacturers product. However this is smaller offering and is designed as an Entertainment Notebook and that was sold as a desktop replacement.
In normal use I easily exceed two hours (2hours 37minutes was the best) without risking going blind by having brightness and contrast so low as to encourage bats to fly. I found a full recharge took 2 hours and 15 minutes from totally drained.
It has 1.6GHz Centrino processor that supports advanced Speed Step technology this means that the 1.6GHz processor can run as slowly as 590MHz on batteries when doing little work. It comes with 512MB or Ram but at least 32MB up to 64MB - of that is used as graphics memory. This unit also has 2MB of cache.
There is a 60GB hard disc and a DVD/CD writer, looking at the outside of the unit the front has the two Harman/Kardon speakers at either end and microphone input and twin headphone sockets. The right side has two USB2 sockets one at either end, a four pin FireWire port, a 6 in 1 card reader (XD, MMC, SD, Smart Media, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro) and an S-Video out, there is also the DVD/CD drive. The rear has only the AC input. Finally the left side has the PCMCIA (PC Card) slot along with the third USB2 port, 10/100 and modem ports, docking station connector as well as external monitor port. Finally to hark back to one item, yes no mistake I did say twin headphone sockets, great when two of you are listening to audio or watching a DVD without disturbing others, so no need for one earpiece each.
There is an 8cm strip in front of what is described as a 88 key full size keyboard I would not call the function keys full size but thats perhaps a minor gripe. Beyond the keyboard are another line of buttons on/off/hibernate, the two quick play Linux keys seven media keys and a wireless key.
The unit is supplied with an impressive software bundle from Microsoft and others. The operating system is Windows XP Home.
I note the stated battery life is up to 4 hours I never approached that but I will not compromise on brightness and contrast as I cannot get a replacement set of eyes. Currently the only vendor I can find with stock is Comet link below and they have it on offer for a penny under £900 this includes free delivery.
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/320_238791.html
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