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HP EliteBook 6930p review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £910
inc VAT

HP's EliteBook has good battery life, a comfortable keyboard and a long warranty, but it's expensive and has a tiny hard disk.

HP’s EliteBook 6930p is clearly a business laptop, but it’s an attractive one, partly thanks to its brushed metal lid.

It’s aimed squarely at business users so it has a smartcard slot and, unusually, a webcam that can also be used to scan and digitise your business cards. You have to angle the screen at a card, which rests in a slot beneath the touchpad. It works fairly well for most cards, but like any OCR software, you’ll have to make a few corrections as it’s not 100 per cent accurate.

There are other features that will appeal to everyone, though, such as its lengthy three-year collect-and-return warranty. The battery lasted an impressive five-and-a-half hours, but at 2.4kg the EliteBook is a little heavier than we’d like for regular travel.

The EliteBook has both a touchstick and touchpad. The touchpad is small but accurate, but the buttons are a bit spongy. The keyboard has an odd grainy texture, but the keys feel responsive with just the right amount of travel; it’s a good keyboard overall. A small pop-out light sits above the screen. It’s nowhere near as bright as Apple’s or Asus’s illuminated keyboards, but it still lights up the keys enough so you can work in dim conditions.

The 14in widescreen display has a matt finish, reducing glare caused by reflections. Unfortunately, it’s the dimmest screen here, with colours that look particularly washed out. The lid feels rigid and tilts back until it lies almost parallel with the keyboard, unlike others that have limited tilt.

The 6930p has only 2GB of RAM, which is a little stingy at this price, but its 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo P8600 processor performed well in our Windows benchmarks. As we would have expected, the integrated Intel graphics chip isn’t powerful enough for 3D gaming. The 160GB hard disk is disappointingly small – we’d expect more storage at this price – but it’s enough for office documents.

It may have a long three-year warranty, but this is the most expensive laptop here. Unless you need its business features or portability, the HP EliteBook isn’t great value.

Basic Specifications

Rating***
ProcessorIntel Core 2 Duo P8600
Processor clock speed2.4GHz
Memory2.00GB
Memory slots2
Memory slots free1
Maximum memory8GB
Size40x333x240
Weight2.4kg
SoundSoundMax HD Audio
Pointing devicetouchpad, touchstick
Power consumption standby1W
Power consumption idle16W
Power consumption active35W

Display

Viewable size14 in
Native resolution1,280×800
Graphics ProcessorIntel GMA 4500M HD
Graphics/video portsVGA
Graphics Memory64MB

Storage

Total storage capacity160GB
Optical drive modelTSST TS-L633M
Optical drive typeDVD+/-RW +/-DL

Ports and Expansion

USB ports3
Total Firewire ports1
Bluetoothyes
Wired network ports1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support802.11a/n
PC Card slots1x ExpressCard/54
ModemYes
Supported memory cardsSDHC, MMC
Other portssmartcard slot

Miscellaneous

Carrying caseNo
Operating systemWindows Vista Business
Operating system restore optionrestore partition
Software includedNewsoft Presto! BizCard 5, Windows XP Professional
Optional extrasdocking station £200, four year extended warranty £91

Buying Information

Warrantythree years collect and return
Price£910
Detailswww.hp.co.uk
Supplierhttp://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

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