HP ProBook 4510s

by Cisco Cheng

With the enterprise EliteBooks and the small-business Compaqs commanding HP's business laptop line, you'd think two brands would be enough to hold down the fort. HP, however, is out to prove that its new ProBooks will be a worthy third segment to what already seems like a crowded family. The HP ProBook 4510s ($700 direct) is one of three desktop replacements in this new line, which should give IT managers some fashionable yet affordable solutions to choose from. The 15.6-inch (16:9 aspect ratio) widescreen, glossy finish, and new-look keyboard are what you'd find on a consumer laptop or one geared toward style-minded businesses.

If the EliteBooks are enterprise products and the Compaqs small business, where exactly do the ProBooks fit in? The short answer is both. The ProBooks will be divided into a business class, denoted by a "b" at the end of the model number (due out later this year), and a standard class, represented by an "s." The "b" models will be accompanied by docking solutions, three extended-battery options, and a fingerprint reader, for instance. The "s" models, such as the 4510s we review here, cannot be configured with these accessories and are aimed at small businesses that are short on or entirely lacking in IT staff. Security software is really the only way to tell that this is a business laptop. Otherwise, everything else reminds me of a consumer model.


The black, glossy top is very similar to the one on the Dell Vostro 1310 and picks up just as many smudges and fingerprints. The tendency to attract smudges also extends into the palm rest area, the touchpad, and the mouse buttons. A better-looking, more smudge-resistant Merlot (dark red) version will be available at a later date, though. The frame is boxy looking, not as curvaceous as the HP Pavilion dv6t (1030us) or the Gateway MD7801u—both consumer laptops in the same price range as the 4510s. At 5.5 pounds, the 4510s is significantly lighter than both the Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 (6 pounds) and Samsung P560-54G (5.9 pounds). Its light weight, alas, also makes the laptop feel as cheap as its price—you can hear the plastics vibrate and sense the hollowness of the frame when tapping on the palm rest area, speakers, and lid. Fortunately, these design foibles are this laptop's only real flaws.

The 15.6-inch LED display looks extraordinarily wide, owing to its 16:9 aspect ratio, a format that adds more screen real estate to the sides and less to the top and bottom. These new screens conform to film-industry standards and have been associated mostly with mainstream, consumer notebooks. The screen is bright and very usable in a work environment, though the 1,366-by-768 resolution is as high as it gets in this price range. The chiclet keyboard, with its non-interconnecting keys like those of the Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch (Dual Graphics) and the Acer Aspire 3935, is a huge departure from HP business laptops. I enjoyed typing on these keys, but others might not feel the same. The best way to find out is to walk into an Apple store (since the ProBooks are available online only, for now) and draw your own conclusions. Adjacent to the keyboard is a numeric keypad, which number crunchers will like.

For $700, the 4510s is very generous in features. It comes with four USB ports, a dual-layer DVD burner, a 5-in-1 card reader, and a 2-megapixel webcam. The included HDMI port is a consumer feature that can be found in the HP dv6t and the Gateway MD7801u as well. This configuration comes with a 250GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive, which is plenty for the average small-business user. Wireless devices include both 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth; mobile broadband or a 3G modem powered by Qualcomm's Gobi wireless is available as an option. Next to the power button is a neat little button that launches HP's QuickLook 2, a quick-boot application that lets you peek at your e-mails and contacts without booting into the operating system. It works only with the system coming out of hibernation or shut-down mode, not standby.

The included security software is what differentiates the ProBooks from consumer machines like the Gateway MD7801u and HP dv6t. The system comes with HP Protect Tools, which includes a credentials manager that stores your log-on information. It also features software-based encryption that makes the content of your hard drive unreadable to outside intruders. HP Spare Key is a neat utility that can retrieve your passwords should you forget them, after you correctly answer three personal questions that you pick from a list when you set up the utility.
HP ProBook 4510s

Parts are what you'd expect from a $700 configuration: The 2.1-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6750 processor is very similar to the budget one found in the MD7801u, except it's more current and slightly faster, at least on paper. This configuration comes with only 2GB of memory but can be expanded to 4GB. And though integrated graphics is your only option for now, the 4510s will be available with the ATI Mobility Radeon 4330 discrete graphics card at a later date. On our video-encoding and Photoshop CS4 tests, the Gateway MD7801u and the 4510s were neck and neck. Thanks to its 4GB memory configuration, the MD7801u scored 4,498 on CineBench R10—about 7 percent higher than the 4510s's result. Enterprise laptops like the Lenovo ThinkPad T400 and HP EliteBook 6930p are much better performers, but you also pay a lot more for them. Overall, the 4510s's performance scores were very acceptable for the price.

More impressive is the 4510s's battery life: Its 47-Wh (six-cell) battery produced 4 hours 36 minutes on the MobileMark 2007 battery test. The Lenovo SL400 uses a much bigger battery (84-Wh) but outscored the 4510s by only 2 minutes. In addition, the 4510s easily beat the Samsung P560-54G (2:40) and the Toshiba Tecra R10-S4401 (3:20) on the same test. The 4510s is also available with an eight-cell battery, which scored 6:16 and comes highly recommended, since it doesn't protrude from the back or the bottom but rather fits flush with the frame.

Finally, the 4510s receives PCMag.com's GreenTech seal of approval. Its LED display is mercury-free and one reason why it received EPEAT's highest honor—Gold. (EPEAT is a certification process that measures energy efficiency and recyclability.) The 4510s is also Energy Star compliant and RoHS certified. Of course, we can't just take HP's word for it: We ran our own energy consumption tests using a P3 International Kill-A-Watt meter and found that the 4510s consumed 14 watts of energy in idle mode, just meeting Energy Star's requirements. When in sleep and shut-down states, it consumed zero watts—very impressive, overall.

Aside from some sloppy design details, the HP ProBook 4510s can be a tremendous asset to a small business, mainly because of its price. Its feature set and performance scores guarantee that it won't be a relic in three or four years, and battery life is remarkable for both the six- and eight-cell batteries. The more expensive Lenovo ThinkPad T400 is sturdier and performs better, but if you need a faster processor or a better graphics card, the ProBooks, including the 4510s, are highly configurable as well.