Hewlett Packard ProBook 4430s Laptop Review

HP’s ProBook 4430s is the latest in the company’s line of affordable, well-equipped, not-terribly-exciting small business notebooks. It was designed to handle non-enterprise business tasks while having some media capabilities. Most business laptops see at least some personal use these days and the smaller the company the more likely the HP ProBook 4430s AC adapter will serve both purposes.

HP ProBook 4430s Specs:

• Model Number XU013UT
• Operating System – Windows® 7 Professional 64
• Processor – Intel® Core™ i3-2310M (2.10 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
• Graphics – Intel® HD Graphics 3000
• Display – 14″ diagonal LED-backlit HD anti-glare (1366 x 768)
• Hard Drive – 320 GB 7200 rpm SATA II
• Optical Drive – DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL LightScribe*
• Memory – 4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• WLAN – 802.11b/g/n WiFi
• Webcam Module – 720p HD Webcam
• Bluetooth module – Bluetooth 3.0 HS Combo
• Fingerprint Reader – Yes
• Battery – 6-cell 47 WHr
• Adapter – 65W Smart AC adapter

If the brushed-aluminum-and-black, 4.5-pound 4430s were a bit thinner, it might turn even more heads. But going with the stocky profile enabled HP to include a DVD-RW drive. The rest of our $579 test unit's components were capable, though unspectacular: an Intel Core i3-2310M, 4GB of system memory, and a 7200-rpm, 320GB hard drive. The display is a 1366-by-768-resolution, 14-inch widescreen with exceptionally even backlighting.

For consumers, laptops such as the HP ProBook 4430s are a perfect example of this dilemma. Touting a 14-inch display and a starting price of $579 USD, the ProBook 4430s has its sights set towards budget-conscious business users who don’t want to be shortchanged on features or aesthetics. Can it pass the test? Read on to find out.

The biggest issue is the bloatware. You're going to want to do a reinstall right away (bcoz lots of HP unwanted software's)the other thing it has HDD with 4 Primary Partitions (Boot, C:drive, HP Recovery & HP Tools)means you are not able to shrink your C to create more logical partition and if you need more partitions you needs to reinstall and by using HP's restore partition you'll just end up right where you started. Going to contact HP support for getting installation media to reinstall my machine according as per my wish with Hard disk Partitions. Except this this HP HSTNN-LB2R battery is really fast and great.

The LED backlit display is very nice and bright. The system ships with a USB 3.0 port which we quickly put to use connecting a WD Portable 2TB Hard Drive.

You can find HP ProBook 4430s for about 570 USD for "beginners" set with 14" screen (1366X768) and Intel Core i3 processor (more expensive sets comes with i5 and i7 processors) "Beginners"set comes with integrated graphic card. You will find useful the HP ProtectTools security suite (works with fingerprint reader hard drive encryption). Also HD webcam of HP ProBook 4430s power adapter will help you vlog and make video calls with your business partners while listening music with SRS premium sound from Card Reader. After that you can connect your notepad to HD TV trough HDMI (also VGA port is included) port and watch some movie (you can find ProBook 4430s with BD-Rom or DVD-Rom, depends on price).

Although the ProBook 4430s has a few minor flaws, it's excellent considering the price. Remember, we're talking about a laptop with a second-gen Intel Core i3 processor that starts at just $579. Many consumer laptops at this same price have cheap plastic bodies with terrible glossy displays. This laptop is an entirely different and more refined beast.

In terms of connectivity, HP includes four USB 2.0 ports, gigabit Ethernet, VGA-out, audio out/in ports and an SD memory card slot. Noticeably absent were both HDMI and USB 3.0 ports, which is a major disappointment as USB 3.0 is rapidly becoming the standard for new computers and HDMI is already standard. There is also Bluetooth 3.0 and 802.11b/g/n wireless connectivity built-in. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional is the operating system that HP chooses for this computer, which again speaks to the business users but doesn't completely leave out the home users either.

This device is powered with 2.1GHz dual core Intel Core i3-2310M processor and 4GB RAM which make this device has a powerful productivity to handle your business tasks. By using Intel’s integrated Graphics, the ProBook is still good enough to handle most of any business application graphics and if you often work on multimedia presentations then you don’t have to be worried anymore because this ProBook 4330s handles those multimedia as well. We can say that this device graphics performance maybe not too good for professional graphics designers but you can still happy to know that this ProBook handle pretty good your business multimedia works. For power, the laptop using a 6 cell 47Wh HP ProBook 4430s battery and it lasted for 3 hours 31 minutes.

A score of 99 on WorldBench 6 is nothing to shout about--in either anguish or joy. It’s sufficent to get the job done but not much more--though subjectively the 4430s feels lively enough. Still, it's not for gamers: Frame rates in our tests reached the high 20s in frames per second--teasingly close to playable, but not really there. Video playback at any resolution is smooth. The sound is loud and clear, but it emphasizes the midrange when played through the laptop's speakers. We measured the HP HSTNN-LB2R battery life at 4 hours, 46 minutes, which isn't the best we've seen, but does beat several comparable units such as the Toshiba Satellite L755-S5258.

This laptop really lives up to its description: ultra portability without sacrificing performance. I'm posting this review after a two week of ownership. Good bright display, Awesome aluminum design, bluetooth and keyboard. Excellent hinges. Decent webcam and audio. Great HP EliteBook 8560w Mobile Workstation battery life (able to get backup upto 5 hours). Fast Sandy Bridge processor. USB 3.0 port removes the USB bottle neck from external devices. Great for external hard drives. 4 USB ports, more than usual in this form factor. Windows 7 Pro 64bit. The fan is quiet, and it won't set your lap on fire. Sturdy construction. Light and easy to manipulate with one hand. The biggest issue is the bloatware. You're going to want to do a reinstall right away (bcoz lots of HP unwanted software's)the other thing it has HDD with 4 Primary Partitions (Boot, C:drive, HP Recovery and HP Tools)means you are not able to shrink your C to create more logical partition.

In terms of security, HP included an interesting new feature in HP ProtectTools. Adding to the built-in encryption functions and biometric fingerprint scanner—turning a user’s fingerprint into a key to unlock the notebook—the ProBook 4430s also has a new facial recognition feature.

Work, meet, play. Create, stream, watch, listen and do more. This versatile, secure and stylish HP ProBook with a 14.0-inch diagonal HD display makes an impression in and out of the office.

The 4430s comes equipped with a 6-cell 47Wh battery. In our MobileMark 2011 battery-life test it lasted 3 hours 31 minutes. This actually beats out the Lenovo X1, which managed only 3:10 with its 40Wh HP ProBook 4430s battery, but other systems are better equipped for the road, like the Dell Vostro (9:37, 80Wh), which offers a battery twice as large and lasts three times as long.

The HP ProBook 4430s is a beautiful machine that has the build quality to back up the look and feel of the device. HP did a great job at making its lower end machines not feel like second class citizens. There are a few areas of improvement, notably the resolution, but overall, for the price of $649.00, this an excellent machine for business or even personal use.

Review of Dell Inspiron XPS M170

This Dell Inspiron XPS M170 notebook review will look at this device, which has just the right balance of computing power and features to suit the novice and advanced user. If you have any movies and games that you wish to view, the Dell XPS M170 will do the job - and do it with aplomb.

The first laptop we’ve seen with the GeForce Go 7800 GTX graphics card, the Inspiron XPS M170 from Dell is aimed very much at the gaming market – but it can do much more than just play games. The screen is a beauty: a 17in TFT with a maximum resolution of 1,920×1,200. UltraSharp and TrueLife technologies ensure picture quality is both sharp and resonant – the screen may be a little reflective, but the image is considerably better than your Dell Inspiron M5110 battery.

The 17-inch, Wide-UXGA True Life display supports up to 1920 x 1200 pixels, which is presently the maximum possible combination of screen size and resolution for a laptop. There is an option to add an inbuilt remote control and TV tuning system at some extra cost but it needs to be precisely informed to Dell at ordering time. Intel Microprocessor with a clock speed of 2.26 and the main board comprising of Mobile Intel 915 PM express chipset with a bus speed of 533 MHz, are the components which assure of the value for money. Among all the gaming parallel products, XPS M170 stands out as the slimmest, durable, capable and extreme performer. XPS M170 is six times less voluminous than Dell desk top.

It's rare to find a notebook that has decent speakers, but with the Dell XPS L701x 3D battery being a premium level entertainment package, Dell went out of their way to provide for some decent built-in sound. The integrated sub-woofer provides for some decent bass that's always missing from the average notebook. It also provides for extra oomph with sound volume, at top volume the sound is definitely too loud.

In keeping with gamer-chic (if that’s possible?) the silver and black chassis is fitted with LED lights on three sides, which can be changed using the software applet to any or all of 11 different colours. A transparent panel on the lid allows users to customise the system by adding their own printed images.

The Dell Inspiron XPS M170 was previously known as the XPS Gen 2 and its looks are very much similar to XPS Gen 2. The Dell Inspiron M5110 AC adapter weighs 8.6 pounds. Its exterior is available in gunmetal and black colors. It has slightly curved edges which makes it look slimmer than its original size. Six LEDs are carefully placed around the chassis which emit light in sixteen different colors. The perimeter lighting makes it fascinating. The Dell Inspiron XPS M 170 uses Nvidia's Geforce Go 7800 GTX. The 7800 has a 24-pixel pipeline, to support Direct X 9 Shader Model 3.0, and around 300 million transistors.

Of course, when I say everything else remains identical, there's little purpose in rattling off all the specifications in detail; suffice to say that Wi-Fi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth are also on board, along with everything you'll ever need in the wired department; DVI and S-Video out included. In fact, our review of the Dell Inspiron M5110 battery would be an excellent starting point for finding out whether this notebook is for you; just keep in mind that the graphics have been bumped up a couple of notches in comparison.

The keyboard is the same layout I’ve had on my previous two Dell laptops and its feel is excellent. My 8100 keyboard was very well broken in with a lot of the letters worn off the keys and the space bar worn smooth. One complaint I’d have about the M170 keyboard and funny enough about the Acer Ferrari keyboard is both keyboards bezels below the space bars are too high and your thumb (ok, MY thumb) bumps into it when typing. Maybe I have some genetically misshaped thumb in that it doesn’t curve down to meet the keyboard before hitting the bezel, but my Dell Inspiron M5110 adapter had a nice sloped bezel that was a millimeter or two lower than the space bar… thus avoiding contact when typing. I can live with the problem, but it makes me wonder what the two manufactures were thinking when they designed the bezel keyboard relationship. It almost feels like they thought, “Hey these are game machines… not for work… maybe we don’t even need a keyboard?… oh, maybe I guess we should put one in just incase…” But the Inspiron 9300 has the same bezel keyboard relationship as far as I can tell… I think the 9300 is meant as a work computer, could be wrong though.

The Inspiron XPS M170 is a powerhouse of a laptop that will appeal to high-end multimedia users. You can expect about 3 hours running time, depending on useage. Over you to you Alienware!

One area that the Inspiron XPS M170 could really use work is the price and software. It only comes standard with a Word Processing software. And this with one of the highest prices for a desktop replacement on the market. Also, it features the Windows XP Media Center operating system but it doesn't really have any features such as a TV tuner to take advantage of the extra features of the OS.

The CPU used in the Dell Inspiron XPS M170 is an Intel Pentium M 2.13 GHz. The built-in memory is 1 GB of DDR2 SDRAM. With these powerful specs, running the provided Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition becomes a simple task.

Equally impressive is the usability and configuration of the XPS. While the keyboard is small - occupying just 287mm of the 394mm chassis width - the keys are well built and allow for a highly comfortable typing action. The mouse buttons and touchpad are equally well made.

For its display it has a large 17” XVGA True Life display which supports 1920 x 1200 pixels. With this the Dell XPS M170 is suitable for watching DVDs and the Window Media Center software adds a plus point for managing music, photos and movies. It also offers remote control, which makes it a portable TV. This Dell Laptops notebook is a very outstanding gaming machine with its state-of-the-art graphics chip and 87.5 frames per second performance. This performance is one among the best notebooks which have gaming facilities. The Dell XPS L701X 3D battery is an exclusive notebook with gaming and multimedia facilities.

Technical Specs:

• 2.13GHz Intel Pentium M 770 processor
• Windows XP Home
• 1GB DDR RAM
• 100GB hard drive
• 17in 1,920×1,200 TFT display
• 256MB GeForce Go 7800 GTX graphics card
• 24x/24x/20x (CD-ROM/-R/-RW) 8x/8x/8x/4x/4x/4x (DVD-ROM/-R/+R/+R DL/-RW/+RW) drive
• 802.11b/g facilities
• Bluetooth
• Microsoft Works 7.0
• Windows Media Center
• Norton Internet Security 2006
• 1-year collect-and-return warranty
• 399x294x45mm
• 3.9kg

Acer Aspire S3 Laptop Review

Acer’s ultrabook doesn’t look massively different to that from any other manufacturer, but there's one crucial specification difference: instead of a big SSD, Acer has kept costs down with a combination of flash storage and a conventional hard disk. The 20GB SSD automatically caches files from the 320GB hard disk as you use them, which Acer says will make the Aspire S3 almost as responsive as an ultrabook equipped with a fully-fledged SSD. We didn’t notice it during a cold boot, which took over a minute to reach the Windows desktop, but it resumed from sleep mode in a much snappier two seconds.

It's pretty clear that every Ultrabook maker is gunning for the MacBook Air, and the Aspire S3 is no exception. However, Acer had to make some sacrifices to keep its price low--no duralumin or unibody designs here. The lid of the Acer Aspire S3 battery is a brushed aluminum, but the underside and deck are made of a silver-colored plastic, and it's made to look like a unibody design even though it is not. The black hinge area at the rear accommodates the S3's ports as well as an air vent. Four rubber pads on the bottom also keep the S3 from sliding around on a desk.

Straight out of the box, the 13-inch Aspire S3 is a beautiful piece of hardware. Just 13mm at its thickest point, it's substantially thinner than the 13-inch MacBook Air (which is 17mm at its thickest, though more starkly tapered toward the front). It's also essentially the same weight: both are just under 1.4kg.

If you are doing a spot of work on the go, then you'll be pleased to know that the Aspire S3 offers a very quick resume from sleep time of just over a second and a quick start-up from off as well. A lot of that is helped by the very quick speeds of the SSD, so how those times differ if you opt for the Acer Aspire S3 AC adapter hard disk-based model remains to be seen.

This leaves twin USB 2.0 ports and HDMI at the back, and leads to similar issues as with Dell’s recent XPS 14z: it makes USB devices awkward to plug in and exposes them to possible damage when picking the laptop up or putting it down at a slight angle (as many people frequently do). The USB ports are also far too close together.

The island-style keyboard on the S3 isn't the worst we've ever used, but it was a bit stiff; keys were large and well spaced (with the exception of the arrow keys, which were a pain), but we would have preferred a little more travel and responsiveness. On more than one occasion, the keyboard missed our inputs when we were typing at a fast pace, and we had to make a conscious effort to press harder. And since the trackpad doesn't pick up a hovering palm, the cursor doesn't skate across the screen unexpectedly. However, it is cursed with integrated mouse buttons. Instead of having separate mouse buttons, you need to push the left and right corners of the pad down to simulate mouse clicks.

The dull gray color isn't very eye-catching, but the overall slim silhouette is still appealing--this is a good-looking laptop, but not a great-looking one. It has a bit of a sedate business laptop vibe to it.

Acer has set out to offer high performance at a lower price points than its rivals. Our review unit featured a high-end Intel Core i7-2637M dual-core processor running at 1.7GHz. This can be increased to 2.8GHz to handle complex multimedia tasks using Intel's Turbo Boost functionality.

On the graphics side of things, you get the typical Intel integrated graphics results. The Dell R3026 battery was more than competent at playing back local and streaming HD video and obviously wasn’t much of a gaming rig. It notched a fairly unplayable 10fps on Just Cause 2. During that gaming test the system's bottom left side got warm, but the rest of the machine stayed relatively cool and the fan in the back didn’t rev up.

Speaking of coffee shops, you need to have a battery life to accommodate the portability of the device. Run the device to its fullest potential and it will last you for about 2 hours. That’s it. Use it conservatively and you may just touch the 4-hour mark depending on your usage. The battery life isn’t anything to boast about but it is better than what is found on most entry level notebooks. One of the reasons why the Acer Aspire S3 battery suffers is that the device has an HDD along with the SSD. The advantage is 320GB storage as the largest SSD available today is 256GB.

Pros:
Thin. Light. Core i5 processor and 4GB memory provide potent performance. Combination of spinning hard drive and SSD provides larger storage capacity without losing speed. More affordable than competitors.

Cons:
Display has lower resolution, limited viewing angles. Construction feels cheap.

Bottom Line:
The Acer Aspire S3 has a super-thin profile, larger storage capacity than competitors, and unmatched affordability, but it has some rough patches, like a cheap-feeling construction and a disappointing display.

In the end, the Acer Aspire S3 attempts to be an affordable, visually attractive, and usable Ultrabook. It only partly meets those goals. The keyboard is mostly good, but the laptop's mediocre audio quality, lack of high-speed USB, shorter-than-average Dell R3026 battery life, and modest performance make it less than appealing. Still, if you need a very thin, very light Windows PC for mostly nondemanding office and Web chores, the Aspire S3 may suit you.

It's a shame neither of the two USB ports support the fast USB3 standard, but there is a memory card slot for copying photos from a digital camera as well as a full-sized HDMI port for connecting another monitor. Where the S3 really excels is performance – the 1.6GHz Core i7 2637M processor and 4GB of memory make this the fastest ultrabook we've seen yet. Also present is a 240GB solid state disk (SSD) which is big for a SSD.

The market for ultrabooks has also expanded to include a few other laptops, like the Samsung Series 9. We’ve seen that in person, and the one area where it’s clearly better is contrast ratio on the LCD—and a matte LCD as well. We haven’t been able to test it yet, but we should have that one soon enough. Performance of the base model with an i3 ULV processor will certainly be lower than what we’re testing with the Acer S3 and ASUS UX31E, but we saw the upgraded NP900X3A-A02US model with i5-2537M and a 128GB SSD going for as little as $999 last week; sadly, the price is now back up to $1430, which isn’t nearly so interesting. It’s one to keep an eye out for, though, as $999 is a massive discount compared to where the Acer Aspire S3 charger launched and that particular model has pretty good specs.

This is a great, top-of-the-line Ultrabook with super performance. It would get an Editor’s Choice if it wasn’t for the price. But if you can find it on the street for around $1,500-$1,600, a Highly Recommended award would certainly be justified.